Somewhere along my journey as a “HemoWife,” I realized that being a good care partner and looking like one were two different jobs. One mattered to my marriage. The other seemed to exist largely for the benefit of an imaginary audience. We have a familiar image…
HemoWife - a Column by Allyx Formalejo
People have often known me by a role. The former gifted child (now neurodivergent adult). The wife. The mother. The HemoWife. Each one belongs to my story. Some have brought me work I care deeply about. Writing about life with my husband’s hemophilia has given me a…
Halloween is one of my daughter’s favorite holidays. She looks forward to creative costumes and makes drawings of pumpkins, ghosts, and bats. Here in the Philippines, people have different attitudes toward the occasion, but that hasn’t dampened her enthusiasm. As I write this, we have a Halloween display in our…
Our 7-year-old daughter, Cittie, recently found herself at the top of a climbing wall at a neighborhood playground. She had managed the climb just fine, but when it came time to descend on the other side, she hesitated. Other children were doing it without much thought, while some parents were…
Sometimes, when my husband, Jared, self-infuses, I can tell when something has shifted. He has severe hemophilia B and has been self-infusing for years. He knows the process. He knows his veins. He knows how to prepare his factor and what needs to happen next. But if he…
I’ve realized that one of the greatest challenges of parenting is teaching children how to care for others without making them feel responsible for everyone’s well-being. This is especially complicated when one parent lives with a disability or chronic illness. My husband, Jared, has severe hemophilia B and epilepsy.
Here is something many people do not know about me: I spent a year studying industrial pharmacy. I don’t always think to mention it. After all, I never earned the degree. I had attended a science high school, so pursuing a science degree at university felt like the natural next…
I thrive as the wife of someone with severe hemophilia B. That does not mean hemophilia has made our marriage easy. It has brought fear, limitations, and responsibilities into our lives. It has also deepened the trust and communication between my husband and me. Over time, I have…
I’ve been thinking lately about how resilience is discussed in the Philippines. After major storms, familiar images circulate online: weddings continuing despite floodwater inside churches, people joking or swimming through flooded streets, and families smiling while cleaning mud from their homes. There is something admirable about finding humor when…
Lately, I have been trying to spend as little as I reasonably can. I decided to enter a season of aggressively paying down debt. Even writing that makes me slightly uneasy. I have a personal concern about announcing goals: Sometimes saying what I plan to do gives me enough…
