CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña will fly to the United States next week to undergo another surgery.
But Osmeña was quick to clarify that the procedure is not life-threatening.
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not dying yet. I’m going to the States to have an operation on my hernia because it opened up the abdominal muscle and it’s coming out, that’s why I can’t carry weights and I’m not allowed to go jogging,” he told reporters yesterday.
In April 2009, Osmeña underwent surgery to remove his urinary bladder, prostate and some 40 lymph nodes after being diagnosed with stage 4 urinary bladder cancer in October 2008.
His doctors at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas declared him cancer-free after the surgery.
The doctors, though, left a hole on Osmeña’s right abdomen and placed a urostomy bag to hold his urine.
“They have to leave the hole open for my urine to come out and that’s what caused this. When they left that hole eventually it opened up, that’s why it really looks ugly. Mobalik na akong sex appeal after that (surgery),” he told reporters yesterday.
Osmeña and his wife, Councilor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña, will fly to the US on Aug. 4 and will be in Houston for at least two weeks.
Margot said the mayor’s situation is not a medical emergency.
“But it has started to affect his comfort and it is advised that he should have that operation. It has been postponed so many times,” she said.
Margot said the doctors assured them that Osmeña is not only cancer-free but totally cured of his illness.
“The last time we saw his doctors in December 2017, the doctors really said that he is not just cancer-free but cured. I almost cried. The doctors even said that he doesn’t even have to come back for check-ups but we will still come back,” she said. (RVC)