The man who got everyone else back on their feet
If you know Jun, you know he does not ask for things. He came to the United States from the Philippines in the early nineties with one goal: to work, live on his own, and never have to rely on anyone. He did exactly that for three decades, in Chicago, Las Vegas and Sacramento, in hospitals and in people's homes.
Ask him about his work and he tells you about a patient who had slept in a recliner for two years. With his help she got out of that chair and walked to the bathroom on her own. That, he says, is what he loved about the job: helping people stay functional in the daily things we take for granted. Standing up. Getting dressed. Taking a shower.
This year his kidneys failed. By July 2026 he no longer had the stamina to see patients, and he had to stop. Two arteries in his heart turned out to be blocked, one almost completely, and a stent was placed. Now he is the one learning what those daily things cost.
Every night Jun does his dialysis at home, by hand: two litres of solution through a tube in his abdomen, drained into a bag at seven in the morning, in a closed room with a clean technique. His disability claim was denied. When we asked him what the hardest part is, he did not say the treatment. He said the fear that people will think he does not want to work. The day he is cleared, he is going back to home health physical therapy, full time, dialysis and all. Until then, we would like to carry him the way he has carried so many others.
