Love Joy for Nicole Hyala
By CYBILL P. BAYTO
“CAN you just imagine somebody asking for my autograph? Who would have thought that somebody would ask for my autograph? I’m not drop dead gorgeous!”
Thus exclaims Nicole Hyala as she shares her blessings during the recent Feast Conference, our Light of Jesus Family’s biggest inspirational learning event, held online November 19-21, 2021.
Nicole Hyala, of course, we know as the ever-popular DJ or disc jockey of the multi-awarded radio station, 90.7 Love Radio, or the DZMB FM station of the Manila Broadcasting Company.
She started simply, ordinary single, as Emmy Gaite. Yes, ordinary. That’s why she could hardly believe she’s now being asked her autograph.
But she says it was not that easy to get where she is now: “I’ve been in this industry since 2004. For 17 years already under the Manila Broadcasting Company. I remember how difficult it was to enter in the beginning, but I got in, and the audience of Love Radio– definitely it was a bit of a surprise for me– they accepted me, loved me, and idolized me.”
She adds, “I started Love Radio in 2004. I was up there. My life has been so busy, so many blessings.”
A big blessing is one of her radio listeners, a fan, Renly Tiñana, became her husband.
And she is grateful for more blessings: “I would say from 2004 until 2021— or a little before that– everything was up there. If there were lows, they were manageable lows.”
Trial
Nicole, however, would not be spared from life’s blows. She says April 16, 2021, was the day “I won’t ever forget.”
That day, their first-born child, Princess, seven years old, suddenly had fever. “I thought it was just a regular fever,” Nicole muses, “because it’s typical for kids to have fever.”
It wasn’t regular ailment.
Nicole continues: “We were scared because suddenly, she started sleeping. She would sleep at any time of the day, even at the times when she shouldn’t be sleeping.”
They brought her to the hospital and tests showed Princess had viral encephalitis– an inflammation of the brain. And she fell into a coma.
The doctor told them, “We’re not really sure if she can make it…We don’t know if she’s going to be back to normal…”
“You know what, Princess is a leader,” Nicole shares. “Princess is a happy kid (as this family picnic photo shows). She’s very like me. She has a boisterous laughter. You know it when she’s in the room because she fills the room with her presence.”
Princess was confined in the intensive care unit (ICU), so, her parents could not be with her.
“That was very painful for us because she would never be out of our side ever,” Nicole laments.
After three agonizing weeks, Princess came out of coma and the doctor said that she could already be out of the ICU.
Nicole recalls, “I saw that she wasn’t the Princess that I knew… Her eyes were going here, there, and everywhere, no particular direction, and then sometimes, she was staring at just one direction… Her tongue sticking out a lot of times… Her legs shaking, going up and down… And then there were three whole days that she couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sleeping and that particular moment, she was very agitated.”
Surrender
The day Princess seemed to take a turn for the worse was, for Nicole, “the moment for surrender.”
Already in tears, Nicole says, “That was the time I said, ‘God, I cannot take this anymore. This is something that I cannot do by my own. Jesus, take the wheel. I lift to You my daughter Princess. It is only You who can heal her and I’m believing that I will be sharing a miracle story one day to a lot of people.’”
True. Princess got better. And Nicole, indeed, joyfully gets to tell her story at the FEASTCON:
“Whenever I share this story, I remember how beautiful and joyful it felt when I surrendered–because I knew then that there is a God who is bigger than all of us, and He is the one in control.
“…Then, I found the joy in suffering, because from then on I knew that everything in my life should be dedicated to the Lord because He is in charge.”
