“Mama, there’s something wrong with Jerson”
That was what my son Lukie complained to his Mom when he came home, after playing with his friends. He explained that Jerson gets moody or angry during play and then walks away.
Both Jerson and Lukie are of the same age. They play well together and share everything they have. The boys ride the same bus to school and share the same class together, although it has been more than two weeks already that Jerson had been missing his class. And he will be missing a lot more.
Lukie and Jerson
My son and the other kids here often say that it wasn’t fair that their friend Jerson could be absent at school and at the same time be playing outdoors.
When the headache and vomiting started, Jerson’s parents brought him to the family doctor who is a general physician. They took him to a pediatrician when the family doctor would always say that there was nothing wrong with him.
The childrens’ doctor in the community ordered a blood and urine test and said Jerson should go into a strict diet. He weighed 50 kg, heavier than my wife and much bigger than most Italian kids his age.
The test came back normal. So the dorctor wanted an eye specialist to look the child up. A phone call from him would confirm the appointment is set.
My family and I were having supper Thursday evening when we heard an ambulance pass by. It never occurred to us that it came for Lukie’s friend. There is no need for the specialist now.
Jerson is the youngest the three boys. His father Edgar is a porter at a hotel and Teresa, the mother, works as a chambermaid part-time. Before Edgar came to Italy he already did a long stint in Saudi Arabia. Latter on when he got settled here, Edgar petitioned his family to come, but leaving the eldest son Jibson to finish and graduate nursing.
Meeting for the first time, Lukie and Jerson became an instant hit to each other even though there was a communication gap between them.
Jerson’s first christmas here worried him. He asked his mother, “Mama, paano pa kaya ako makikita ni Santa Claus dito sa Italya?”
When he was a toddler, back in their home province in Laguna, he played with a disk battery and pushed it up his nose. The battery had already corroded when Doctors surgically removed it.
That afternoon before the ambulance came, Jerson asked his mom to wake him up once his friends have already arrived from school. When he woke up he sat on a chair on the terrace and dozed off again, sliding off the chair.
Jerson’s mother and brother Jerome took him in and tried to wake him up. He can be conscious from time to time but could not move a muscle. Jerson’s head started to hurt that made him scream in pain till he gets unconscious again.
At the Ospedale Civile in Venice, the medical personel found something in Jersons brain. Then they transported him to near by Padova to surgically remove the benign tumor.
The operation started at eight this morning and ended succesfully at two in the afternoon. Jerson will stay in the ICU for two days and the doctors adviced his family to go home and rest.
The family needs to have supper this night even though there is an atmosphere of worry in their home. What ever might be the extent of damage the tumor brought to the child’s brain, twenty percent of Jerson’s body or mental fuctions will be lost.
Edgar, Teresa and Jerome will say grace before the meal. They will pray that Jerson and his brother Jibson in the Philippines will soon fill the empty places on the their dinner table.
