Home Get to know the author of The Courage To Give .
I was a happy, outgoing child growing up on Negros Island in the Philippines. I was a good student with a big, wonderful family and lots of friends. In college, I finished a degree in marine engineering and started studying chemical engineering. But in 1981, while I was home during summer vacation, my mother noticed a small lump underneath my chin. The local doctors removed the tumor from my chin and replaced it with bone from my hip in a bone-grafting procedure.