I used to endure bad asthma attacks and emergency hospitalizations at Kaiser. At that time, Kaiser prescribed ProAir and Albuterol, which fight against each other, and the victim is me, gasping for air from uncontrolled asthma. It worsened as I experienced the stress and traumas of a highly toxic workplace in a state agency.

My husband got assigned, years later, in our retirement, to do a post-doctoral teaching sponsored by Fullbright in Leyte. We took a trip to Baybay, Leyte, his next research seminar assignment. I also was doing an all-day seminar on ‘Ethics, Spirituality of a Quality-Conscious Professional.” I had an asthma attack coupled with allergies and bronchitis. I was gasping for air with every sentence I uttered.

My husband suggested I reschedule, but I pushed through, knowing folks were travelling from faraway campuses of Tolosa and more. I completed the seminar. At the end of the seminar, this academic personnel was so motivated, and I asked for volunteers to share: one said she would make love to her husband more and folks laughed, while another said I would wake up to my life and pursue my doctorate.

When we returned to our condotel, I couldn’t change clothes. This was when my husband said; I am taking you to an emergency. By the time the ambulance came, it was an hour later, as they had to find a working battery for their hospital ambulance. Being the journalist I am, I wrote a full-page newspaper story in Taliba; my editor then was Suzan Rosal, and that story was leveraged to get more funding for the infirmary.

A good doctor, Elwin Jay Yu, conscientiously researched what meds to give me. His service was impeccably professional and first-class quality care, even though his third-world surroundings of an infirmary had worn-out sofa springs, torn upholstery cover, leaking plumbing in the toilet, and termite-infested ceiling rafts.

He got me back to normal so that I could breathe again and braved dawn morning masses for Simbang Gabi in Tacloban, Leyte, a week later.

When I returned to the US, my husband put me into a regimen of juicing fruits and vegetables. I did not like it as it seemed I lived to see the bathroom all the time. I didn’t understand the concept of cleansing my body from the insides. That was in 2008.

I went back years later to visit and the infirmary was upgraded to Level 1 hospital.

During the 2020 peak of the Coronavirus, Dr. Yu immediately imposed quarantine and, with proactive university authorities, decided to keep the students in campus dorms safe and safer. Now they are vaccinating them.

Fast forward to 2021. I am now juicing 2 cups wild blueberries, 2 cups apples, and 2 cups spinach, my anti-inflammatory drink, each morning. I have only been doing this juice this year.

Today, knock on wood, I have more healthy days than sick days and no emergency hospitalizations.

This year, we were fortunate to drive 3,677 miles and visited five national parks: Great Basin, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Capitol Reef, and my all-time favorite now out of 29 national parks we have visited, Glacier National Park.

Still with all these, I had allergies in May, that led to uncontrolled asthma. Kaiser, this time, through their asthma and allergy clinic, prescribed the right meds for me: same inhalers, of Flovent and Serevent, the equivalent to the Swiss drugs prescribed by Dr. Yu, and allergy meds for the evening.

Thanks to Kaiser’s Dr. Joyce Lee, VSU’s hospital’s Dr. Elwin Jay Lu, and my juicing blueberries, which keep my asthma under control for me to keep living to the maximum.

My lesson: To not settle for hospitalizations, that I am more than my asthma!