Cancer patient spreads life’s joys online Tonette Orejas Inquirer
November 14, 2006
CLARK SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE, Pampanga -- Gerry Lee Zara, 19, is not letting leukemia kill his will to live and learn.
Confined to the house due to his frail health yet unyielding to despair from the threat of dying early, Zara battles it out through the Internet powered for him by Smart Bro.
On a personal computer given to him by Smart Communications Inc. in October 2005, Zara surfs the Web, lapping up all the information he can get on a variety of subjects like science and technology, health, culture, sports and even fashion.
Through the Internet, he stays in touch with more than 200 friends, telling them in e-mails to “pursue their dreams and make the most out of life with their good health.”
To those youths, he has become a sort of ambassador of life. In turn, he is swamped with messages telling him “not to give up, to fight on.”
His computer is in the center of a neat 4x7-meter room he shares with two brothers and a sister. He calls home Unit 5545 in Air Force City here where his father, Master Sgt. Henry Zara Sr., is communications supervisor of the 600th Air Base Wing.
“I’m still connected,” Zara says, referring to his cyberspace activities that allow him to keep in touch with friends, find new ones and nourish his mind with new information since leukemia forced him to stop schooling.
His illness was detected in April 2005, just after Zara completed his first year in an electronic communication engineering course at Holy Angel University in Angeles City outside Clark, says his 46-year-old mother Evangeline.
After he had to quit school, Zara says he refused to cede any further to the disease by sulking and wasting his life.
“At first it was difficult to accept. I thought these things only happen in the movies. But I have to fight on,” Zara tells the Inquirer, his bright mood shining through even as Typhoon “Queenie” cast dark clouds over Clark.
He credits his optimism to his soldier-father’s positive outlook and his mother’s deep faith in God. Their front door opens up to an altar and the smiling image of the Sto. Niño (Child Jesus).
Amid the emotional anxieties and mounting debts, Evangeline keeps the house in order to give her son a sense of home.
Aside from his computer that has been his constant pal, his older brother, Henry Jr., has been his closest buddy ever.
Henry Jr., who works as a computer programmer in Makati City, buys him caps. A play station is a recent gift.
“Even if I’m sick, I can manage, I fight it. I try to live normally and enjoy my life to the fullest,” Zara says.
Wish
Zara always wanted to have a cell phone and to become a telecommunications engineer.
Glenda Cruz, a friend of Zara’s mother, helped by sending a letter to the Make A Wish Foundation that, in turn, tapped Smart.
“It’s the first time for us as a telco (telecommunications company) to be involved in such a case like Gerry’s. Others would wish for toys, gadgets. He wanted to be an engineer for a day. That’s unique,” says Cynthia Capua of Smart’s network services division.
Zara received the crash course in October 2005, joined by students from Angeles City National Trade School which the company has supported through donations of PCs and Internet access.
Zara came to class wearing a cap, protective mask and, Evangeline adds, “lots of enthusiasm.”
The lectures in the morning gave an overview of how the global system for mobile communications and wireless fidelity work, according to Manuel Hipe, NSD senior supervisor.
In the afternoon, Zara went on on-the-job training at a cell site. There he configured a PC and connected it to the Internet.
He also “observed engineers at work and saw the different types of equipment and batteries used to convert radio frequencies into voice calls and text messages,” says Smart’s Rej Peñacerrada, who wrote of Zara’s learning journey.
Zara emerged class valedictorian. He got the surprise of his life when the last activity turned out to be at his house. There, he came home to a new PC and one-year free access to the Internet.
“His smile was up to his ears,” Evangeline recalls of that day. It was the first time she saw her son cry and leap for joy, she says.
Nearly gone
Zara, who was inspired by what happened, hurdled his chemotherapy sessions at the Philippine General Hospital and Armed Forces of the Philippines Medical Center (formerly V. Luna Medical Center) until the relapse on July 27.
“He was almost gone,” Evangeline says. “His doctors had given up on him. He was struggling with his breathing. His blood pressure dropped to 30 or 40 over zero. His hemoglobin was down to 70. All the life signals were low,” she says.
On an ambulance borrowed from the Air Force, they decided to take him home in the first week of August.
But the fighter that he is, Zara says he summoned all the prayers he could to get his bearings back.
After that close bout with death, Evangeline says it is miracle enough that her son is alive today.
From 45 kilograms in April 2005, he has added 5 kg to his thin build.
Throughout the interview, he never showed pain or feelings of depression. He says he likes to rule it over his ailment than letting it get the best of him.
His e-mail address -- oberon_132003@yahoo.com -- takes after the name of a king he played in a high school play.
He is bound to enjoy more time on the Internet. Smart on Saturday extended his broadband access another year.
