Transplant: Kidney, 1989
Hometown: Manila, Philippines
Victoria's Story (in her own words): My destiny was doomed in my sickbed when, in near desperation, my mother asked me to surrender myself to God. I was only 18 when I fell ill of Amoebiasis. And all my dreams and ambitions were clouded when I was denied entrance to medical school because of permanent deafness. It was hard to accept that I was handicapped for life, but I carried on with a determined spirit even while the flesh was weak.
Time is an ambush. At 25, chronic glomerulonephritis hit me, and there wasn't much option except for a kidney transplantation. Apart from what I had to go through, my heart ached for my mother. Widowed only four years ago, she did not deserve the burden I was causing. So I gathered enough strength and pretense to disguise my condition. It was a bitter struggle between body and soul for I still wasn't willing to surrender. I was hoping for a kidney transplant with my elder sister as donor. But there were tears of disappointment for she was engaged to be married to one who was strongly against the donation. I did not wish to blur my sister's happiness, and finding anchor in prayers, I gave her up for my donor.
With my mother's prayerful vigilance, our wait took only a month. On her birthday, I was miraculously blessed with a cadaver donor and was successfully transplanted at the National Kidney Institute, without undergoing dialysis. After six years, I am back to work, grateful to God for my gift of life. He let me live that I might plant the graft of hope and love in the hearts of the sick like us, longing to see the dawning of a new day.
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Last modified:
11 May 2000