She’s with her husband most of the time. The times she’s able to spend a few hours by herself are few. For reasons unknown, I thought Estalita’s name was Lulu, and called her that for more than a year. Born in the Philippines, and a former government employee, Estalita is a tenant in the building where I live.
In every season, I see her walking on the street with an ‘older man’. Although I always thought the man was her father, it turns out he is her husband. It must take infinite patience for the brimming with energy Estalita during their daily walks. A walk from Gerrard and Bay to the nearby Eaton Centre, would only take a few minutes for Estalita on her own. When she’s guiding her husband along the pavement, the same walk can take most of an hour.
Estalita’s story is an inspiration to the few who know about it.
Until a couple of years ago, her husband was a business executive playing tennis several times a week. One day he became suddenly ill with what appeared to be a stroke. Whatever the illness was, it left him in a coma. Doctors told Estalita there was not much hope that her middle-aged husband would ever come out of the coma. They advised her that he would be too much care for her to keep him at home and said if he went to the hospital, he would likely die there.
There was no way Estalita was going to send her husband to the hospital to die. Against their advice, she kept her husband at home, where doctors visited his bedside only periodically. With a medical background of zero, Estalita became her husband’s full-time nurse, only leaving the apartment for an hour or so once every couple of weeks, and only then after finding a sitter she felt she could trust.
With no nearby family members to lean on, hours in the apartment were long; her duties arduous. It took extra work to fight off descending depression.
"I tried to do everything as before," she said. "I read to him, played the music he liked, talked to him as if he weren’t in a coma."
One early winter morning, as she was opening the drapes to begin another day, her husband opened his eyes and smiled at her. Although he couldn’t speak, to Estalita--whose husband had remained in a coma for nine long months, it was nothing short of a miracle.
"I never wanted to take the doctors’ advice because he wasn’t a burden or an inconvenience but my own husband," she said. "No matter what they said, they were wrong and I was right because I have my husband back."
Miracle or not, it’s still a lot of patience and work looking after him. Estalita, who continues to take him for walks, never complains, and always has a word of encouragement for others.
No medicine but the abiding love and faith of Estalita had much to do with the recovery of her husband.
Not everybody of course awakens from a coma. There is the well-known tragic case of Sunny von Bülow still alive and still in a coma from which she has never awakened.
But even in the new millennium, things happen that baffle the best scientific and medical brains.
The sudden awakening of Patricia White Bull--in a deep coma for 16 consecutive years--on Christmas Eve 1999 flabbergasted the medical community in South Dakota. Having slipped into a cationic state while giving birth to her fourth child Mark Jr., the 42-year-old, mother awoke and hugged that very child for the first time.
Mystified doctors could give no explanation for the Christmas Eve awakening. All that was guaranteed was that White Bull had suddenly blurted out: "Don’t do that," as nurses were trying to straighten out her nursing home bed on Dec. 24. But White Bull’s mother, Snowflake Flower had no doubt about the explanation. "It was a miracle from God," she said.
Patricia White Bull stopped breathing when she was delivering son Mark Jr. by Caesarean section. A blood clot had formed in her lung, and although frantic doctors were able to get her breathing again, she had suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Doctors told her family she would never recover.
But sometimes doctors can be wrong.
Meanwhile, to those of us lucky enough to know their stories, the Estalitas and the Snowflake Flowers of this world are living, every-day inspirations.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement