A walking miracle

Two years ago, on Feb. 18, 2007, Dr. Norberto R. Agcaoili, pioneer in tissue banking in the country, passed away. A testimony to how well respected and loved he was as a scientist and person was the number of cars that spread to several blocks of Broadway St. in New Manila (very rarely seen before) and how Carmel Church was bursting at the seams with mourners at his wake. 

Eulogies were very moving, recalling as they did Dr. Agcaoili’s good nature, his humility, and his having lived a life of purpose and faith. And mention was made of doctors having given the prognosis after he suffered a severe heart attack that he would be gone in two to five years, but amazingly, he lived for 20 years, and thus was considered “a living miracle.”

It was in the evening of April 19, 1988 that Dr. Agcaoili had a massive heart attack while playing basketball in a summer league at the St. Luke’s Hospital where he was a consultant. At St. Luke’s coronary care unit his heart was immediately injected with an expensive drug designed to revive the pumping of his heart. Electric shocks were also administered. He was revived, and spent three weeks in the hospital and recuperated at his home. Three months later, he was brought to the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, Texas for a by-pass procedure.

The good news was that the angiogram showed that there were no blocks in his arteries and he did not need a by-pass. The sad news was that his heart suffered from cardiomio-pathy, a hardening of the heart muscles. The only solution was a heart transplant, a drastic measure without which the doctor would be gone in three months to three years.

Norberto was accompanied by five members of the family: three medical doctors — his wife Millie, his mother Dulce, and his brother, Mariano Jr. — and brother Rico and his wife, Telly, both practicing lawyers.

Rico, former president of the Philippine Bar Association and president of Baguio Country Club, remembered that moment when his mother Dulce, made the declaration. “The doctors will not be the judge of my son Tong’s life on earth and neither will we! We are not letting Tong know about the condition of his heart! We will go back to the Philippines and just continue praying for the healing of his heart.”

“When we returned home,” recalls Rico, “my mother simply proclaimed to all - that ‘Tong is healed! It’s a miracle!’ Imbibing Mommy’s enthusiastic faith, Tong lived his life from then on that Jesus indeed is the healer and the Great Physician. He went to daily mass and received the Holy Eucharist almost without fail. And that was the beginning of Tong’s second life. How many of us get the same chance and if and when we do, how many make use of it to the fullest!”

Dr. Agcaoili finished the medical course at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Medical Center (Class ’71) and postgraduate studies at Nuffield Orthopedic Center in Oxford, United Kingdom. He was born Dec. 6, 1944, in Lucena City, the third of seven children of lawyer Mariano (UP Law ’36) and medical doctor Dulce Reyes (UP Medicine ’44). In 1972, he married UERMM classmate Amelia Moya.

Unmindful of his condition, upon his return to the Philippines, he went back to the practice of his profession and continued his research work. In 1989, he wrote a chapter on the Manual of Orthopedic Emergencies titled “Holistic Approach to a Trauma Patient,” and several scientific papers on tumors and on tissue banking in the Philippines.

Barely two years after his attack, he became president of the Philippine Orthopedic Association. He became a founding member of both the Asia Pacific Association of Surgical Tissue Banking and the Muskuloskeletal Tumor Society, the latter of which he served as president from 1994 to 1996.

He also became an international scientific adviser in the European Tissue Bank Association and founding member of the Philippine Society of Emergency Care Physicians. From 1994 to 1997 he was chair of the Department of Orthopedics, UP-PGH. It was during this time that the Orthopedic Learning Center Building with Spine Unit was inaugurated.

In 2000, Dr. Agcaoili was elected chair of the Philippine Board of Orthopedics. For his pioneering work in tissue banking in the country, the Tissue Banking Unit of UP-PGH was named the Norberto R. Agcaoili Memorial Tissue Bank as recommended by the Department of Orthopedics and approved by the UP Board of Regents. He was also awarded as one of the “Most Outstanding Medical Graduates of the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.”

On Feb. 18, 2007, just two months before the 19th anniversary of his heart attack, Dr. Agcaoili quietly and peacefully went home to his Father in heaven. The two to five years he had been projected to live had become 19 years.

His youngest son, Miguel, who was only seven when he had his attack, has graduated from the University of Asia and the Pacific. Eduardo Andres, only 10 at the time, has completed his MIS course at the Ateneo de Manila. Norberto Nicolas Jr., only 12 then, has graduated from the UE. His only daughter, Patricia Anne, 15 then, also graduated from the UERMM as a doctor of medicine. His wife, Amelia continues to practice as an obstetrician at St. Luke’s Hospital.

Rico fondly talks of his brother Tong: “My brother did not only live longer than any of human prognosis, not only by a year or two but 16 or more years. He saw his children finish college, married off his daughter, and enjoyed his precious grandchildren while reaping laurels for his professional achievements. Indeed, answered prayers and God is good! To me, my brother Norberto’s life was indeed a miracle!”

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