On a fourth go-round on this,(sorry mark,this isn't a swipe at you, so don't take it that way), I've thought about alternative patterns to what I've been thinking.
Based on my own (I hope not flawed) opinion, you are truly distressed internally about this whole thing. Mark you had no where else to go but here, with this situation.. I figure. Your only other escape from this seemed to be to consider someone else, since your trip had been "in process", and under consideration for so long. The way that you posted your "YOUR HELP IS NEEDEDplease look!" post, is just an example.
If it was me, without your experience of being a nurse, seriously, I would've just caved in, and never said a word... maybe I would've emailed someone else, and told them to tell the rest of the board members of the situation instead.. maybe, just emailed a few and told them to say nothing, but just needed to vent to personal friends that I could trust.
But you, in your own way, found the strength to post a copy of an email, as a mechanism, to vent to the world, using words that you could not find otherwise... Which works out to be a great tool to help vent the soul. Vent by proxy.
Man I'll tell you, if you've got this much strength on the surface, to do this, then I pray, that you'll have enough strength when you get there not to turn into a total jelly fish like I would, and just pass out with a hundred san miguel bottles stacked neatly in a row on the floor of the hotel room.
Maybe you've seen so much death and loss in your career that it becomes as normal as buying a coke at the soda machine, but you never had to consider any one of those bottles of coke, as very important to you as she was. Christ, you've got months in this, and to be able to wash it over, takes a lot of emotional strength, to bury it that deep.
Myself being one that's had more failures in life than successes, I've learned that there's always one thing that treads quite heavily in life, no matter who you are, and that's sentiment. Sentiment for what was, what could have been, what wasn't - but always desired, etc... I can only hope that you'll not mask over all of it, the sentiment that is, in the same way that you mask over the human losses that you've experienced in your job. (I don't think you will.. in the long run).
I didn't want to write this, but I had to. I knew that some would object to your opinion in your email and position and then, there would be others that would support you and object without saying anything, and yet, others that wouldn't know the difference and just sympathise with your position in life right now.
I must be honest with you... I've thought about this same thing happening to me. Having so much time and effort invested, and then losing it all because of something stupid, like a traffic accident, crossing the street, or 
? (Haven't we all? Or do we ignore all of these extremes of possibility?) But to an illness??? Or something like that? That's incredible. (What if it was me instead? What would happen to her? Don't want to go there so I won't).
Me thinks it's a healthy scheme of things to escape to something else, but I know, that deep in your heart, that you'll definitely come to terms with this eventually. Forget time... the visit to Cebu and all... Forget arrangements, meeting specific people, etc; if I were in your shoes (and I'm not so it's easy to throw around words like this), I'd just get on the plane and go, and not worry about engineering any "meets". Yes, it's a good way to fill the vacant and empty thought patterns you might be feeling now, but maybe, you'll be better off, just going with no plan, no nothing.
Get off the plane.. and say hello world for a change.
Just go and do it... life's too dynamic and fulfilling to make a single week of vacation, the most important of one's life. Which is exactly what you're looking for, the most important week(s) of your life, to meet the most important significant other, in your life.
It just doesn't happen that way, by design.
Wing it for a change. Now's the time. The only thing that's guaranteed, are strange and new experiences.
Good luck to you and God Bless...
BrianN
