..and this is the part that changes everything.

I woke up, sweating, feeling the awful pain in my stomach, with my head feeling light and heavy at the same time. When I checked the time in my cellphone, I groaned loudly, I've only had three hours of sleep. Not a good time to wake up. I got out of bed to take a dump real quick so I can go back to sleep. After 10 minutes in the toilet, nothing came out, I felt the pain subside somehow. I went back to the room, lie down to bed and tried to go back to sleep. Only a few seconds has passed, the pain came back. I rushed to the bathroom..nothing. Back to the room, still painful. Bathroom, one dump. Room, the pain's getting stronger.

Alarmed, I grabbed my cellphone to text Alex. I also texted my colleague and Alpon to ask about my situation, they both said the same thing--I should go to the hospital, asap. This is really a bad case of indigestion. That's all. I don't want to think of the other possibility because it's too early for that, I thought glancing at the calendar hanging on the wall. Aug 11. Yep, this is not possible.

When Alex opened the door, I was kneeling on the floor, twisting in pain. The cramp has gotten worse.

"You okay? What happened?" he asked, kneeling beside me.

"Not really.." I said through clenched teeth. I struggled to sit on the bed to show him the messages on my cellphone.

Silly conversation between two people who knew nothing about what was going on.

We packed some clothes in a small bag and off we went. He hailed a cab, we got in, and then, it began. The excruciating travel from where we were staying in Manila to the hospital in Quezon City, where my doctor is. During that moment of my struggle against the pain I'm not really familiar with, all I could was hold on to Alex and wonder how am I gonna be able to survive it. I was close to fainting. I want to cry but it feels like it wouldn't do any good. I've been warned about how painful it's gonna be, but this is definitely worse than what I imagined.

......