So how is Rio doing?

Is it true that you are dying?

That was the first brutally frank question I popped to Rio Diaz the other day when I lifted the receiver. Last Monday, Rio sent me a "Hi, how are you?" text message from San Francisco, asking if she could call me on the landline and I texted her back, "By all means!"

You see, like you and thousands of other people closely "monitoring" Rio’s long-drawn battle with the Big C and constantly praying for her along the way, I was alarmed by recent reports that Rio was seriously ill and had only a very short time left.

After spending Christmas here last year, Rio flew back last January to San Francisco, which has become her second home since she was diagnosed to have cancer in late 1998, to undergo more chemotherapy because her doctors discovered that the cancer cells have spread to her lungs and liver. Since then, only sporadic news about Rio, handed down by second/third not-so-reliable sources, have been filtering back home. You know what happens with hand-me-down news stories, they are often magnified to frightening proportions.

So when Rio finally called me up after a long silence, I asked her pointblank if, yes, she was dying.

In her characteristic straight-forward, no-holds-barred and equally brutally-frank manner, Rio answered in a not-so-surprising cheerful voice, sounding as if she had just won the lottery, "Oh, yes, I am dying. But God willing, it’s not going to be today. As everybody knows, I have put myself and my life in His hands. If the Lord decides it’s time for me to go, then I’ll go."

These past several weeks, Rio has been assuring and reassuring worried friends, relatives and even strangers concerned with her condition that, so far, she’s doing well, thank God. A friend called up from the Philippines, asking Rio, "Where have you been?," suspecting no doubt that Rio had just been brought back in a stretcher from the hospital. "When I told her that I just came back from shopping, she couldn’t believe it. She probably thought that I’d been bed-ridden."

Her parents, parents-in-law, sisters, brother and close relatives who are not in San Francisco know Rio’s true condition, of course. But even Rio’s older sister Gloria Diaz, maybe expecting the worst when she visited Rio last week, couldn’t help breaking into tears as soon as she saw Rio on her feet, as sunshiny and as cheerful as ever.

Half-joking, Gloria told Rio as they dissolved into a tight hug, "Why are you not pangit? How come you look so good?"

But Rio herself was the first to admit that things hadn’t always been as good as they are now.

"In fact," she said, "things became so difficult and so painful last February that I almost gave up; I almost asked the doctor to stop the chemo. Everything in my body was going haywire – my blood sugar, the cancer cells, everything! My body was rejecting the chemo. But the doctor told me, ‘You go on a break and then come back.’ That was in February."

Until then, culminating on Valentine’s Day when he flew to San Francisco, Rio’s husband, Negros Occidental Rep. Charlie Cojuangco, had been sending Rio roses every day.

"When Charlie arrived," said Rio, "we went on a three-week break with the kids (Claudia and Jaime). We went to L.A. and we spent one whole day in Disneyland. Since then, we’ve been to L.A. three times, once to visit Ali (her son by Hajji Alejandro) who was there for a vacation."

She now weighs 112 pounds, having regained the 10 she lost during what she described as "the most painful period" of her illness. She goes out like any normal person, refusing to let the Big C stop her from living and enjoying life. She observes a diet of mostly vegetables and fruits but Rio confessed that she continues to gorge on M&M chocolates, "my all-time favorite." Why, she has even taken up kick-boxing!

But she still undergoes chemo every other week.

"The doctor told me that the cancer cells are under control," added Rio, "so far. My body daw has recuperated. I know that my body is dying but I don’t feel sick at all. Chemo has become a way of life with me. It’s funny nga that with some cancer patients, perhaps they die from heart attack due to fear of the chemo and not from cancer itself. Last February when I was losing hope, I whispered to God, ‘Bahala ka na sa akin, Lord.’ The Bible reminds us a thousand times never to give up. Even if the organs in my body are going haywire, I try to keep my mind intact and not let it go haywire."

Through it all, even with her round-the-clock battle with the Big C, Rio never fails to find time to console people in the same situation; she has become a care-giver. Last year when she was here, Rio sought out Love, the daughter of movie writer and dzXL program host Mar d’Guzman Cruz, at the Cruzes’ apartment in Quezon City when she learned that Love was diagnosed to have leukemia. For more than two hours, Rio talked to Love, giving her moral support and reminding her to keep her faith in God and not to give up hope.

Rio has also been sending inspiring messages to Celia, Korina Sanchez’s mother, who recently underwent surgery in New York where she’s still recuperating. "I admire Korina," said Rio, "She, like her mom, also has such strong faith in God. She’s a strong woman. Korina’s mom is doing incredibly well."

Meanwhile, Funfare is asking the readers to continue praying not only for Rio, Korina’s mom and Mar Cruz’s daughter Love but for all the patients waging a similar battle for life.

"With prayer," said Rio before she hung up, "nothing is impossible."

I can only say "Amen!" to that.