By PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA — Sen. Miriam Defensor–Santiago yesterday announced that she will hold a “meet and greet” event for her social media followers soon.
In a 48-minute video message posted on her Facebook page, Santiago said she plans to meet her Facebook and Twitter followers.
“Hello, my dearest friends! I wanted you to see me as I am now in partial recovery from my lung cancer,” the feisty Ilongga senator said.
In June this year, the resigned International Criminal Court judge was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
Her doctors “took away two cups of liquid from my lungs,” the senator from Iloilo City said.
According to Santiago, she has been taking a “wonder pill” as her medication.
Six weeks later, Santiago said she had undergone a positron emission tomography–computerized tomography scan, which showed that 80 percent of her “cancerous mast” had already disappeared.
“I do not think I am Stage 4 anymore,” said Santiago.
Santiago said she will return to work on Oct. 20. She has been on leave since the start of the 16th Congress last year due to chronic fatigue syndrome.
Her doctors told her she is “on the road to full recovery,” she said, but added that she is still trying to work on her “physical stamina.”
“The characteristics of cancer are still there. The pain, of course. My whole body is painful. My muscles, my legs are painful. There is depression, like you lose the will to live or the will to function,” she said.
Santiago said she should manage stress because she has only “partially recovered.”
“As you can see, I am demonstrating to you what happens when I am working. I am palpitating. I am already dizzy. The reason I do not go to the Senate yet while I am on partial recovery is that I might lose temper,” she explained./PN
