Surviving SARS

Everybody loves Krissy Cuenca. She is the kind of girl that will be very hard for you to hate. Wonderful, happy-go-lucky, fun to be with, our great friend. One day she broke the news: “Guys, I’m migrating to Canada.”

Nobody wanted to believe her, because for the first time during grade school, we began to experience a whole new change. It was hard on our part because we will miss her as our dear friend, and for her, she will miss home.

Fast forward to the year two thousand and three, Krissy’s back, not for good, but here on vacation. Life has changed, indeed for this great gal. She has a completely different life out there. People would say that she is lucky because she got to conquer to live a stable life in a land that has greener pastures compared to Manila. “But Canada is not all that,” she says, “you think you’re ok, then one day you realize, ‘Hey I’m not safe either!’”

Krissy is talking about the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or what we commonly know as SARS. It has been a few months since the last news article about SARS has come out on the newspapers, but the threat and the trauma is still present in Krissy’s life.

As I interviewed Krissy, she recalled her experience when the epedemic broke out. It was a fine day in Toronto, Canada. Krissy was with one of her best friends, Trina Añeves. Trina happens to be a BLD (Bukas Loob sa Diyos) member, the charismatic group who got the order to be quarantined because of the SARS breakout.

Life changed for Krissy, little things mattered, every move mattered. Going to church became difficult because of the gloomy atmosphere. No one was allowed to take communion by mouth, or use holy water, or even have human contact in the event of giving peace. In school, people were not allowed to come in the buildings if you have symptoms of having SARS. Krissy did not know what to do because she had cough and cold, but was sure and confirmed that she did not have it. However, this caused a major burden because she had examinations that week and couldn’t make a move to take the tests because of her conditions.

As if symptoms weren’t enough, her lineage brought her a bit of hell as well. Just because she was Asian, of Filipino blood, people discriminated her, thinking that she too had SARS, along with the Filipino Community. It was bad enough to be stared at, but to be avoided in places like subways epitomized her new home into a living hell.