A surgical procedure to remove a brain tumor of dancesport athlete Michael Angelo Marquez has been successful and may bode well for his quest for another set of medals in the Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia next May with dance partner and wife Stephanie Sabalo.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, the duo thanked their supporters for the financial help for Marquez’s surgery that has forced the couple to cancel all their commitments for the last two months of the year and since qualifying anew for the biennial SEAG.
While doctors at the Quirino Memorial Hospital removed the meningioma, the most common type aof brain tumor, the operation came with an “instrumented repair of the orbital roof (bones where the eye socket is located).”
They wrote: “Your heartfelt financial assistance would be truly a gem in our heart and will forever be treasured, and most importantly your faith thru prayers would be our strength for my full recovery.”
Earlier, the couple asked for an apology for their cancelled competitions, show and other commitments for November and December, while also asking for financial help.
They wrote: “We apologize for our cancelled competitions and shows and other prior commitments for these month of November and December.”
The cancellation, the couple said, was due to them facing “another battle for our life.”
Marquez and Sabalo, who grew up and studied in Baguio, said that the latter was diagnosed with a form of tumor in his brain and the result came after the SEAG in Hanoi, Vietnam last May.
Marquez sought for four more other medical opinions “but the diagnosis is still the same.”
He was supposed to undergo surgery on the last week of October to November 7 but had it moved since they were to join the Philippine Dancesport Federation National Championship and SEAGames Selection on October 29 and 30 at Ultra.
Marquez said they had to delay the procedure “since 80 percent of my life I owe to my dancing and being an athlete and so I am thankful that my awesome doctors granted my appeal.”
They added: “Amidst of it all, we had managed to win our Title again as 2022 PH National Champion and 2023 South East Asian Games representative in Cambodia.”
He further wrote: “Together with my better half Steph, we’ve accepted and embrace the reality of our situation silently in the past months and pursued more in our Intentions and purpose as a way to gratify our faith with God.”
The two won gold medals in five dance and paso doble and a silver medal in jive in the 2019 and a gold and two silver medals in the delayed 2021 edition, the gold coming from cha cha cha, while the silver medals came from jive and five dances. Pigeon Lobien
