Alfredo Pacis

25/07/2026

25/07/2026

I got over 20 reactions on one of my posts last week! Thanks everyone for your support! 🎉

21/07/2026

With Protect The Tree Movement – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

18/07/2026

*Chapter 6: Coming Home to Baguio City Really Live*
_FROM PAIN TO RECOVERY: HOW I STRUGGLED AGAINST STAGE 4 PROSTATE CANCER_

Hospitals keep you alive. But home - teaches you how to live again.

After months of going back and forth to Urologist _ my doctor advised me “Mr. Pacis, you can stay home and manage yourself from there. Live your life.”

Live your life. With Stage 4. At 85. With empty pockets. I didn’t know how.

This scene reminds me again my trip from Muntinglupa to Urdaneta city felt longer than usual. When we passed through the North Diversion Highway up to the Barangay road going Manaoag, Pangasinan where I was scheduled to attend our PEDRO-ESTRELLA Pacis Clan New Years annual celebration, I smelled the rice fields, the dust from the road, the smoke from someone’s _dirty kitchen_. It smelled like childhood. Like before cancer. Before bills to pay. Before “Stage 4.”.
When I reached our Barangay where I was to attend our new years celebration, my host sister-law cooked _pinakbet_ and fried _bangus and OMG! that's my favorite but I couldn’t eat much yet, but I sat at our antique wooden table, ate a little and just…looked at the food prepared, on the plates.
That’s when it hit me: I had been so busy “avoiding death” that I forgot to live.
So I made new rules for myself:

*Rule 1: Sit in the sun for 10 minutes. everyday* Not for Vitamin D, but to watch our neighbor’s chickens and listened to the tricycles passing so fast. I was still part of the world.

*Rule 2: Do one small thing for someone else.* Some days I could only pray that God restore the best of my health from the top of my head down to my feet. Everyday I folded my own blanket, I was a guest of my brother. My home in Baguio City is still far. After the celebration I had to leave for my home city, Baguio City.

*Rule 3: Write one sentence a day.* On good days, a paragraph. On bad days, just _“Thank the Lord, for today.”_ Those sentences became this story.
I attended the occasion despite the pain.
The meds are still expensive. The Aterone-Prednisone tablets are very expensive but my doctor prescribed
and became part of my protocol. Everytime I worry about the next lab test.

Stage 4 taught me to stop counting years. I count mornings now. And today, I woke up in Baguio City. That’s enough.

In Chapter 7, I’ll share the practical things that help me survive at 85 — my daily routine, what I eat, how I afford meds with no income. Because fighting cancer isn’t just spiritual. It’s also _resourcefulness_.

To every cancer patient who just sent home: Home is not where you go to die. It’s where you go to remember why you want to live. Start a new life again.

If you can help me, I can continue to write more of my story, "how I struggled against my 4stage Prostate cancer." And take my medicines regularly. You are helping me to continue living and writing from home, maraming maraming salamat po.

18/07/2026

*Chapter 5: A Revisit
The Words That Changed Everything*
_FROM PAIN TO RECOVERY: HOW I STRUGGLED AGAINST STAGE 4 PROSTATE CANCER_

After the night I almost quit, I went back to consult my local Urologist for consultation. I was scared. My PSA had dropped, but Stage 4 was still Stage 4. I sat in front of my doctor waiting for bad news.

He looked at my labs, looked at me, and said something I’ll never forget:

Mr. Pacis, we don’t treat numbers. We treat people. Your PSA is just a number. You will to live — that’s what I’m watching.”_

I didn’t understand at first. _“Doc,”_ I said, _“but I’m 85. I’m Stage 4. What will to live?”_

He smiled. _“The will that got you out of bed today. The will that made you take your medicine even when you wanted to quit. The will that makes you write. At 85, that’s not luck. That’s fight. And medicine works best on fighters.”_

Nobody had ever said that to me. Not like that.

For months, I thought I was just a sick old man spending his borrowed money, his last pesos on borrowed time. That day, I realized: I’m not “Stage 4.” I am Alfredo Pacis — father, grandfather, man of faith — who _happens_ to have Stage 4. The cancer is in my body. But it is not my name.

That shift changed how I took my meds. I stopped taking them like a dying man. I started taking them like a man who had birthdays to attend. I drank the Ateron-Prednisone tablets and thanked God for each tab. I walked up and down our stairs to our building pavement, not because the doctor said “exercise,” but because I wanted to see the sunset.

The pain didn’t vanish. The bills didn’t stop. But I stopped being a victim of Stage 4. I became a student of it. I learned its patterns. I learned when to rest, when to push, when to pray.

My doctor also told me: _“Mr.Pacis your story is part of your treatment. Hope is medicine too. Share it.”_ That’s why you’re reading this now.

In Chapter 6, I’ll tell you about the day I came home to Baguio City for good — and how I learned to live with cancer, not just die from it. Because that’s the real battle: not just surviving, but continue living again.

To anyone reading this with a scary diagnosis: You are not a number. You are not your stage. You are still you. And “you” are worth fighting for.
My friends and relatives who sent their financial assistance earlier, I say, million thanks. I am winning against. Prostate cancer stage 4.

18/07/2026

Full grown siblings beautiful

18/07/2026

Originally just 4 siblings , now it has 9. Wonderful