Diana Emlano (People 2011: Week 1)

Author's note: For 2011, I have decided to write about certain people in my life that have touched me during those times. These people, I may have interacted during that week or not, but surely I have remembered them. This is my response to a call to be always grateful at all times.

Diana Emlano (Ms. D)

I met Ms D during our Faculty Follies production. For those who are not from LB, Follies is a yearly show in the university where colleges compete with witty scripts, "shocking" performances, anything goes. Students usually look forward to it to see their professors in scenes that they will never see inside their classrooms.

I remember, Sir Ron (one of the production's directors) and I (I was production manager) had a great problem in finding one of the main characters, the role of "Beera". We needed someone "fashionista", someone "palaban", someone who can really act. It was then that Sir Ron suggested Ms D. Being a veteran of the stage (she appeared in the Icebag series, and many other productions), and being a member of the Department of Humanities faculty teaching Speech Communication classes, we knew she'd be perfect.

And perfect she was. She made "her" colony united on and off stage (here's a link of our college's presentation by the way). She even won the best supporting actress role for her performance. She earned this even when she had difficulty during the middle of our act when she left the stage very shortly and asked water from me. I remember that time. When we were finished and was back at our dressing room, we were puzzled that a stage veteran like her who is used in being at the stage for hours would be tired at the ten minute mark of our act. Of course, we will forget this as we would be overcome by our college's defeat in the final rankings and also, our joy for our jewel, Ms D for winning her award. One week after our performance, together with the rest of the cast and crew, we even had a "victory" party at the night out district near the university.

Fast forward to January 5, 2011, I visited Ms D with Sir Koy at the Philippine General Hospital to donate blood. She was rushed there Jan 3 and it was not clear to me what she needed: RBC, WBC, Hemoglobin. We just rushed there because Sir Ron posted in our production cast and crew's Facebook group page that she was indeed rushed to PGH because of leukemia. The following day, her birthday, the doctors took some bone marrow sample and we are waiting for the results.

For more details regarding Ms D's battle, please visit her support group page in Facebook: Dee Army/ Pink Army. We are praying that it is not leukemia, though the odds are against us. I'm just set aback whenever I see Ms D's smile above and the battle that she's into right now. But I know she can win this, and we are here by her side to back her up.