By LEAN CARLO MACOTO
LIKE the vast majority of Filipino men, Raymund Nanos is a huge basketball fan. His favorite sport is basketball. His favorite pastime is watching basketball. Those who don’t know him would probably think he plays ball at the court around the corner. In his purple shirt, walking shorts and flip-flops, he looks like that type of guy.
But he isn’t. In fact, this five-foot-five mega basketball fan plays no sport.
At seven months, before he could even walk, Nanos was diagnosed with hemophilia, a rare bleeding disorder and a lifetime disease. Blood doesn’t clot normally for hemophiliacs, and when they bleed, they do so much longer than normal.
Spur-of-the-moment bleeding episodes are not strange to hemophilia patients, especially around their ankles and other joints. Strenuous exercise like basketball can induce bleeding. At least once in their lifetime a vital organ bleeds, spontaneous or otherwise. A recurring question in Nanos’s life is, “Will I bleed today?” Chances are the answer is “yes.”
Hemophilia is genetic. Curiously, Nanos is the only hemophiliac in the family.
But Nanos, 28, doesn’t let his disease cripple all of his dreams, even if living like a normal person is a daily struggle. He even managed to marry, and now has two kids with another one on the way.