No Regrets

Chapter 12: An Illness in the Family

Except for his asthma, my husband Leo Prieto had been a very healthy individual most of his life. He indulged in many kinds of sports and kept himself very fit.

One day, we were having lunch with Marcos Roces and my sister-in-law Teresa at the Shangri-La in Makati in a private room. The luncheon was given in honor of Ambassador John Negroponte who is now the American Ambassador to the United Nations. My other sister-in-law Rosemarie was sitting next to Leo and I was seated next to Caruso, her husband. All of a sudden Rosemarie said to Caruso, who was in front of her, "Caruso, I don’t think Leo is feeling well." I got up immediately and went to him and said, "Leo is having a stroke!" Someone called a doctor and someone else called an ambulance. I knew that Leo was having a stroke because I had seen someone in our home having one.

When we arrived at the emergency room, he was immediately attended to by a lady doctor who was the daughter of the eminent and well-known Dr. Nemesio Perez, who is a neurologist and specializes in strokes. It was fortunate that he was attended to right away or this story might have had another ending.

Three days before his stroke, Leo was in Bicol hunting and shooting snipe (agachonas). He loved to go to Bicol because he had grown up in Naga at an hacienda his parents owned, and every chance he had to go he took because he went not only for hunting but to visit the hacienda in Causip and also those who were still alive who had worked with his family.

Now Leo, as I said, was in very good health. He did not have hypertension or a heart problem, so how come he had a stroke? I strongly believe that the cause of it was extreme stress. Leo had been negotiating the sale of the Manila Jockey Club. There were several groups bidding for it. Leo had to constantly go to the board of directors of the M.J.C. then go back to the buyers and so on. This went on for several months and it was causing undue pressure on him. Finally, they agreed on the terms and the negotiations were over with. It was a load off Leo’s mind, but I think the damage was done.

Leo was half-paralyzed. His left side could not move and his face was drawn up to one side. It was touch and go for a while and then he was taken to the ICU. My husband was a fighter, he was not going to let this get the better of him. But when he was in the intensive care unit he was giving instructions to our elder son Mike in case something happened to him. I could only whimper and tell him he was going to get better. Finally, he was taken to his private room. His speech was still slurred and he had difficulty eating. Slowly the days went by. Sometimes I would see that he was despairing but then he would try his best to do everything he was told to do.

One day, out of the blue, he started having hiccups. A week passed by and he still had the hiccups. Day and night he was given a teaspoon of sugar to swallow. Nothing happened. He drank a big glass of water gulping it down, still nothing happened. They tried scaring him, all to no avail. Three weeks and he still had the hiccups. On top of everything else he had to have this. Then one day, my daughter-in-law Carmen (Tony’s widow) brought Fr. Corsie Legaspi to pray over Leo and to heal him. We all prayed to God to at least take away the hiccups. The next day the hiccups were gone.

Moving Back To Forbes

We stayed in the hospital over a month. When we arrived at our condo I realized that it was too small for us, what with Leo’s nurses, people coming and going. We would just have to move to a larger place. Fortunately, our big house in Forbes was going to be vacated by the people who had been renting it. Leo was happy over our move. This was where our children had grown up and where we had spent most of our married life. Besides the house had a large garden and pool, which was much more appropriate for him.

Time passed slowly for Leo, he was eager to get well and he was a good patient, following everything the doctor ordered. His face eventually straightened out and with daily therapy, his left side was starting to respond.

One day I lay down beside him. He was lying on his right side, and I had my arm around him. "Mary," he whispered, "whose arm is that?" As he could only feel my arm he couldn’t imagine to whom the rest of the arm belonged to. I laughed and said, "Whose did you think it was? The nurses?" Both of us had a chuckle afterwards.

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No part of this autobiography may be used in any form without permission from Mary H. Prieto and the Philippine STAR.