INQUIRER Global Nation

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and wife Margot have always been known to be close as a couple.

Cancer has brought them even closer.

Interviewed at home in barangay Guadalupe, Margot said in jest that with all the time they spent together, just the two of them, in the United States the past four week, it felt like they were on their second honeymoon.

With more hospital visits ahead, the companionship will see both of them settling in a rented apartment in Houston, Texas next week.

The mayor is scheduled to undergo chemotherapy and then surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDA).

The two-bedroom apartment overlooks a man-made lake.

“Murag honeymoon lagi,” she said, laughing.

Since the mayor was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer of the urinary bladder last month, Margot said her role has been that of “caregiver” and “documenter”.

Add to that secretary and messenger.

“I don’t even think about it,” she told Cebu Daily News about her new functions.

She takes careful notes of what the doctors discusses with them about the mayor’s illness and clips the mayor’s medical records in folders.

Even Tomas’ hospital ID bracelets, including those in MDA that include the patient's photo to avoid any risk of mixup, are collected and kept.

While they were in New York, she said her husband saw her poring over hospital forms.

Margot laughed as she recalled his comment to her: “You know what, Ma, you are really making life easier for me. But you know if you were the one who gets cancer and I am the one who has to do all these, you might die. I cannot do that...”

Margot admitted that she finds cancer scary but she knows that they can fight it.

She also said she has no reason to complain or to be bitter because her husband, whose insurance policy and family resources allow him to seek world-class medical care abroad, has the “best care.”

“Again, we are in a very good place. We cannot be in a better place,” she said.

She said she was also thankful to the people who were praying for her husband's speedy recovery.

“I teased him ‘you're leading people to prayer.’ People are praying for him.”

Asked what was her source of strength, Margot replied: “God and because I have been so blessed.”

“When I cry, it is not because I am sad but because I am touched and He continues to touch. Good things happen. I ask God what I want to ask from him. I talk to him like many people do and you wait and you hold His hands and He will lead you. He did, does, and He continues to do so.”

Margot said she relished “little miracles” as her husband battles the biggest fight of his life.

She pointed out that it was very hard to get into MDA. Some had to wait for two weeks. But Tomas was able to get in immediately.

The couple also received text messages from people they didn't even know. One person had offered to bring her a sandwich for dinner while her husband was undergoing a procedure. Some volunteered to drive them to the hospital.

Margot said one message came from a Cebuana who said Tomas helped her secure a US visa. Now, she works as a nurse at MDA.

“Aren't those miracles?”

Margot admitted that she was initially opposed to the idea of her husband's decision to come back to Cebu before undergoing chemotherapy. But the doctors agreed that it was a good idea so he could relax and be ready for the treatment.

“I am glad we came back because Tommy is so alive here,” she said.

While they were in the US for almost a month, she said her husband was bored.

The couple flew to the US on Oct. 8 after doctors here found a tumor in his bladder to undergo another round of tests and a second biopsy that confirmed the diagnosis of cancer. But he came home without any fanfare on Wednesday.

He was set to deliver an off-scheduled State of the City Address on Saturday to reassure his supporters and investors that he remains capable of handling the city’s affairs and to talk about his centerpiece project, the South Road Properties.

The venue, however, was transferred to Cebu Coliseum instead of the Cebu City Sports Center in anticipation that it might rain.

The couple is expected to return to the US on Sunday.

According to Margot, they will first stay in Los Angeles where their son Miguel is based. They will stay with Margot's brothers for two nights before proceeding to Houston, where they have rented an apartment.

The apartment, according to Margot, is sprawling. It has two bedrooms and a big kitchen since Tomas loves to cook. It overlooks a man-made lake, has a shared garden and is gated like a townhouse.

It is also just about a mile and a half away from MDA.

Margot said the doctors have briefed her of the four cycles of chemotherapy that will require her husband to be in the hospital two days in a week. Each cycle lasts two weeks.

She said she didn't know how it would be done but her husband would be given MVAC, which is considered as most aggressive form of chemotherapy.

She said chemotherapy has to be done first ahead of the surgery in order to shrink the cancerous mass and prevent it from spreading before it is removed.

It was a like a garbage bin full of dead leaves as how the doctors explained to her, she said.

If it is uncovered, the leaves will scatter especially if it is windy. The chemotherapy makes the leaves stay in place and shrink. Once the chemotherapy achieves the desired result, the doctors take out the garbage bin.

“They just want to make sure that the mass is smaller,” she added.

Margot said the chemotherapy had nothing to do with the spot found in the lymph node. When it was tested in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, she said the doctors found it to be benign.

But MDA doctors didn't want to take chances.

Three days ago, Tomas underwent another procedure and a biopsy was conducted on the lymph node. The results would be known in five days.

But Margot said the surgeons told her that it looked good, although they said wanted to make sure.

If the “spot” is cancerous, she said it would also be contained by the chemotherapy.

Six weeks after the last cycle, Margot said her husband would undergo surgery. They will take out the bladder, the prostrate and the lymph node, if the latter is found to be cancerous.

Asked why the prostrate had to be taken too, she said she didn't know. “May be the bladder goes with the prostrate… maybe it is useless without the bladder.”

Her husband has two choices. One is to have his bladder reconstructed through the inner intestine. But it also means training yourself to urinate at will.

The second is to attach a bag on the side to contain his urine.

Margot said she is prepared for the side effects of the chemotherapy that includes hair loss, nausea, fatigue, among others.

So far, she added her husband has been a good patient.

He has stopped smoking. He has not also been drinking even if the doctors have allowed him to. /Connie Fernandez