My wish has been fulfilled although it was a bit too little too late as I have to wait for it painfully
I have been enjoying a three times a week dialysis sessions for about a couple of months now unlike in the past where I experienced weekly, every fifth day, and two times a week dialysis session. That was due to the fact that Philhealth, my country's universal health care health insurance where people who are belonging to the vulnerable sectors of society like the elderly and people with disabilities (PWD) are not required to pay premium to get some free services from government hospitals anymore. They just needed to be a member by joining Philhealth and it is like when I went to the one of the biggest government hospitals last April to fix my AV fistula and was given a free treatment because I am a PWD and a member of Philhealth.
But when I was just starting dialysis, I had no clue about Philhealth because it is not being advertised in the television. My family had never any insurances of some sort to begin with because maybe my grandparents doesn't have any either. So when thy go to the hospital, it is the only time for them to look for money but mainly from my father's pockets. Well as for my case, my brother would just take some loan from our loan shark neighbor who would try to take the money back before the appointed or agreed upon time. We never looked back from her again, so after that we are given a loan from our kind neighbor who is a businessman. But later my brother would ask for a loan from his friends at work with zero interest fees. I guess that those people will soon be repaid by God himself because they saved us from trouble.
I regret from being a heavy drag to my brother, he was also just starting his career in the company where he is currently working now. He started from cleaning the company's ground premises and being a laboratory technician afterwards up to being part of the company's managerial section, so under his power are the supervisors that repots to him. Anyway, I was very lucky to have him because of his unending support for me because he was there during the crucial moments that I needed him like for example when he gave money to the free dialysis service being done clandestinely by our church to support the dialysis patients of the church. The money was used to fix the dialysis machine's motherboard because it is being infested by rats and mice. Later, that machine broke again from the same reason but I was transferred to the hospital where my nephrologist are treating dialysis patients under her care with the hospital's own dialysis clinic.
It was this current dialysis clinic that I got transferred to which for some years I never paid for my treatment because it was being sponsored by my church. My Nephrologist will just go to the central office of my church to collect her due payments. After that I was able to use my Philhealth benefits after not being able to use it six years after I got it from then a campaigning presidential politician. After getting it I didn't know how to use it because firstly I have no money to pay for the payment of monthly premiums plus I do know how it works until I learned about how it worked by paying a whole year of payment because the system requires you to pay about ten months premium before you can avail dialysis from the dialysis center where you get your treatments.
So my church had ended their support after I finally had used my Philhealth for my succeeding dialysis treatments until now. The benefits started from only about 40 dialysis sessions per year with a combination of EPO injection, then afterwards it was changed from giving 90 sessions per year but no more EPO injections anymore included, and now we are given 156 sessions which more than okay because if a patient will use it three times per week, they can still get 12 sessions per year. Lucky and blessed are the new dialysis patients now because they will never experience the things that I went through when I first started because I went to get only once a week dialysis to every five days and then back to once a week which I was able to endure despite that I am in the worst episodes of my life for being internally toxic all the time. Well not mentioning other dialysis patients who suffers the same where some would finally stop going because they have no more funds to use.
Being dialyzed twice a week was not enough for me, it can be ok if my nurses are not putting extra salt in my body which is why my mouth would burn in thirst after or while getting my treatment. That is also why I am trying to sweat it out by enduring the heat of the day so that I can at least lower my body's salt content. But if I was getting dialyzed normally I can endure a day or two without drinking too much beverages plus normal dialysis treatment refreshes the body and it helps me with my appetite. Now I still feel acidic after dialysis as if I had consumed a very bog bag of chips or worse than that. So I was thinking to try the dialysis clinic of my Town which now had been held in abeyance because of the flooding problem that our town alone had experienced a few weeks ago.
One big downside of getting dialyzed three times a week for my situation is paying for the dialyzer plus the gas money that we have to pay for going to the clinic and back and then the food that we are buying for myself and my parents while they wait for me to finish-up which is also another downside because of what I was putting to my parents for the reason that they should be enjoying their lives and not taking care of me anymore. So I am hoping to live more so that I can be able to financially put my parents in a better situation than we are currently experiencing right now. But I am sure enough that there will be a moment for that even maybe from this year and also to the next year but may God wills it for me and my parents.
I am still thankful that I had to experience a three times dialysis sessions per week, it could have been much better if it was like that more than two decades ago where I do not have to suffer so much tribulation by being saved by the bell for each and everytime that I go for my non-frequent dialysis session. Now I do not have to worry about my fluid consumption anymore, I can be more liberal and at the same time no more backlogs of fluids to be removed because I exceeded my limitations that was set to me by my nurses. Anyway, there are still requests by dialysis patients groups to enhance the benefits from Philhealth which could be an additional dialyzer allotment per month or maybe EPO injections being included in the benefits. I will still have to see that happen in the future but it would be fantastic if those will happen and let us all pray that God wills it because it will ease the lives of dialysis patients and their families which could also make the dialysis patients be more productive and contribute to society.
