Chemotherapy 6

The good news were good but then again good news can't be anything but, can it?

1. I managed to maintain my body weight at 56.4 kg. I have heard of other patients who lost as much as three kg during the chemotherapy.
2. My red and white blood count is within the normal range. The WBC actually dipped below normal after the 4th chemo.(the blasted taxotere, oh yeah!) The therapy cannot go on if this count goes below a certain limit.
3. As for my cholesterol level which was hovering at 13+ three weeks ago, it is now 9+ with the recommencement of my cholesterol medication. Although some other people will hit the roof when their cholesterol is at the 9+ zone, I'm pretty comfortable with it. I've been worse.
4. I met a lady who underwent the radiotherapy and she laid my concerns to rest. She told me her skin did not develop any ulcers nor were there any burnt marks. She also recommended fresh coconuts during this therapy and confirmed that the body aches will come to delight us all. This sort of confirmed my earlier theory that fresh coconuts causes body aches.

Nothing untoward happened at today's session. Although the needle prick was slightly more difficult than yesterday, it was successfully administered.

That lady who underwent the radiotherapy, the one I wrote about up there? She had uterus cancer. Her uterus was subsequently removed together with 20 lymph nodes. The tumor in her uterus as well as 4 out of the 20 lymph nodes removed were diagnosed with Stage 1 cancer. Since hers is in the early stages, all she needed was radiotherapy and a round of chemotherapy with mild dosages of another type of medication. She's 38 and she hailed from Seremban. Her operation cost her $18K.

An elderly man in his 70s found a lump behind his shoulder. He ignored it. Later he developed a persistent cough. He ignored that too. Then he started to cough out blood. He went to see a specialist. After a series of test, they told him he had cancer. (Stage 3, I think. I don't recall.) His son drove him all the way from Kuantan to seek medical treatment here.

It gets better, doesn't it?

Blood Test - Chemo 6

The needle prick for the blood test today was painless although at some point, the nurse could not find my veins. I was praying silently at the time. I discovered later that my friends remembered me in their group prayer.Thanks, one and all. What will I do without your support in prayer.

The waiting list for radiotherapy is a long one so mine will commence only in three month's time. By then, my hair would have grown. I will require 23 radiotherapy sessions. This will be preceded by a CT Simulation scheduled next month. From what I understand about this simulation, they scan my body to see where the risk areas are, mark it and focused on it when radiotherapy commences.  I was told that the therapy will not hurt but it may burn my skin and cause skin ulcer. Then again, according to the oncologist, that's the worst case scenario and only apply if I have sensitive skin.

The radiotherapy may cause some damage to my heart and lungs. Given my high cholesterol, I may acquire some form of a heart disease and develop a permanent cough.

In a month's time, I will commence the hormone treatment. They have prescribed Tamoxifen and I will be taking a combination thereof for the next ten years. The long term effect of this drug is vein thrombosis and uterus cancer.

As for the shooting pain in my finger-tips, it may go off six months or a year after the last chemo.

I should be jumping for joy because the last of the chemotherapy session is tomorrow. Instead, I find myself in the depths of despair because the future looked bleak. It is the year-end. While others are planning their year-end vacation and company dinners, I am wallowing in self-pity.

Millennium Powder Beverage

Dang it!

It's back to the slaughterhouse tomorrow. Blood test followed by the dastardly taxotere on the following day. I've been hit by a round of moody blues for the past few days. It began when one of my relative told me how one of her relative had been struggling with breast cancer for twenty years, going for one treatment after another. It was a depressing thought. I started thinking about my expiry date. My days are numbered.

That I made it this far must be attributed to the Millennium Powder Beverage. I was mercifully spared all serious infection except for that unhappy incident at the beginning with the blasted sore throat for which I was given a round of antibiotics taken orally. I have had guests sneezing and coughing in my face during the pre-taxotere days. What could have given me this protective shield? I believe the Millennium Powder Beverage must have helped. (No, I am not a shareholder nor am I soliciting for any sales.)

The Placebo Effect? Perhaps.  Perhaps not. I don't know.

UPDATE: Read Supplements.

Garden Pictures

What I found in my little garden today.

mango

red mini cattleya

Purple Phalaenopsis

Dora's Father

Cucumbers

Boy and girl cucumber flowers?

Haven't heard of those, eh?

It's true.  The cucumber plant had male and female flowers on them. (See picture below.) The tiny yellow flowers on the left are girl cucumber flowers. The last two elongated structures are male cucumber flowers. (I mistook the last two for baby cucumbers.)

So I experimented with the cucumber plant some time last year and learned about hand pollination. Never heard of those, eh? 

If you leave it to nature, the garden insect visits the boy flower, (which appeared earlier than the girls) gets some of those magical stuff on its body which it then transfers to the girls. Now pregnant, the cucumber starts appearing behind the girl flower. Having served their purpose, the boys drop off.

Unfortunately, my cucumbers never reach maturity. They stopped growing at some point and turned yellow. This is due to incomplete pollination. Hand pollination is about using a paint brush to transfer the pollen from the boys to the girls.

So now you know everything there is to know about cucumbers.

Long Coriander

An old  friend messaged me recently to ask about the herb on the right. It is known by many names. I called it Long Coriander. The herb was featured in Astro's Asian Food Channel recently but they called it Saw Tooth Coriander. I might as well throw in a more impressive name. Eryngium foetidum. For more information read HERE. This herb is known to originate from the Caribbeans. It was brought to South East Asia by Jesuit priests. The herb featured prominently in Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, and a little less prominently in my kitchen.

Saw-tooth coriander

I used it for steaming fish dishes, not that I'm nuts about fish dishes but the herb does rid the fish of its fishy smell. Here's one of my favourite non-fish recipe:

Hard Tofu and Coriander

1. Cut two blocks of hard tofu into bite-size slices. Lightly fry them with a pinch of salt in a little oil.
2. Push the tofu to the side of the wok and add chopped garlic to the remaining oil.
3. Add peeled and veined prawns to the browned garlic.
4. Add a little water to this mixture and let it simmer for a while.
5. Optional: Add chicken stock or oyster sauce. (I don't add any of those. The prawn is good enough for me.)
6. Add shredded long coriander.
7. Voila! An aromatic and appetizing dish all ready and done.

Apart from its culinary uses, this herb is also used for traditional cures.  Burns, earache, fevers, hypertension, constipation, fits, asthma, stomach-ache, worms, infertility complications, snake bites, diarrhoea, malaria and epilepsy, just to name a few. Eric, a family friend told me how his grandmother used to chew on one of these in the morning. I can't remember what it was supposed to cure anyway.

The next time I make one of those char-siew pau, I'm going to add this herb into the ingredient just to see if it gets us anywhere sensational.

Coriander seeds

At the centre of the star-shaped structure is a short stalk covered with seeds. The seeds turn brown when it ripens.

It was said that these seeds were used in Indian cuisine but I know nothing about that.

Jittery again.

By this time next week, I'll be going for the next blood test, vexing over the availability of a suitable vein and worried sick about the side effects of the treatment on my hurting fingers. This pain is bearable mind you, but I'd rather drop the pain, thank you.

The blasted diarrhoea returned last week and I'm beginning to suspect that fresh coconuts may not have anything to do with it. 

Well meaning advisers and survivors said that it is important to drink lots of water during this period. The treatment had a "heating effect" on the body so water is required to cool it down. I honestly don't understand this talk about "heating up" and "cooling down" but I know for sure that the water intake served two purpose:

1. Flush out taxotere.
2. Keeps the veins supple enough for the next needle prick session. Insufficient water intake causes the veins to go brittle thus impeding said needle-prick. (I overheard a conversation between the nurse and one of her patients.)

Meanwhile, it is time to hit the garden.

The House on stilts

There was something about the smell at the harbour which enthralled me as a kid. The air was pungent and carried a composite of scents which collided into the harbour smell. A trip to Aunt Z's house during the school holidays had always been a treat for us kids. My cousins and I used to spend our school holidays together having loads of fun and not worrying about the business of growing up.  Aunt Z's house was built on the swampy banks close to the harbour.

The trip began with a short sampan ride from the jetty. We boarded the sampan gingerly and spread ourselves out to distribute the weight evenly. The scenery was awesome. The sampan carried us between huge vessels towering into the sky. Other sampans left these vessels loaded with goods so traffic in these waters were high.

We sat demurely in the sampan as it carried us to Aunt Z's House on Stilts. I remembered longing to dip my fingers into the cool green water as the sampan surged forward into the smell. A few knocks on the head, previously administered by my Ma took care of that. "There are crocodiles in there," she would proclaim at the beginning of each trip. So I was a gullible kid.

The approach was fascinating as the distant houses loomed larger. Mangrove ladders greeted us at the end of our sampan ride. These ladders had always been a hurdle for the gaps between the rungs were wide. Manoeuvring these steps weren't easy for me as I wasn't agile.  At the top of the ladder is a wooden gangway which led to Aunt Z's house.

The front door opens into a square living room which is spacious by today's standard. Bedrooms are situated on both sides while the ancestral shrine occupied the main wall which looked out through the front door. Behind this wall is an area occupied by a large wooden table. Further at the back is the kitchen and the toilet. The toilet was most extraordinary. It was a hole cut out from the plank floor. You drop your stuff through the hole and the fishes below snapped them up.

Aunt Z's speciality was the stir-fried curried catfish.  There is a reason why I don't like catfish or fish dishes in general.

Walking Tall

When I was a wee little kid, I used to think that Death followed a hierarchical order loosely based on your position at the family tree. I found out how wrong that was when my cousin died. He was the second son of my Aunt Z (not her real name) and this old matriarch had ten children. Only five survived today.It must be terrible to see half your brood gone before your time.

Aunt Z is close to ninety. She is also my oldest living relative on the paternal side. Her husband gave me a small strip of opium to ease my pain when I had a childhood accident. I was only about this high at the time and I declined his offer because it didn't look tasty. It was Aunt Z's family who discovered The Strange Book floating upon the sea at the harbour where they worked. But that's a story for another time.

Aunt Z isn't exactly our favourite relative but most of us were concerned and accustomed to sharing news about her.  Our interest is purely speculative, if you catch my drift. There was a time about thirty years ago when one of us who had the occasional touch of vision, dreamt about her death. It was almost surreal but it didn't happen.

A year or two ago, her eldest son (since deceased) bumped into Cousin Al (not his real name) who was another paternal cousin of mine. Cousin Al called me.

"Have you heard? They're taking Aunt Z home from the hospital. She must be close to ninety now. Pass the word, will you?"

I did.

About an hour later, Cousin Al called again.  "Have you passed the word? You have! Quick! Retract the word. She's still alive."

And she is.

She's still walking tall today.

The moral of this story? You don't want to mess around with The Word.

Walking into the shadows

They were married for something like fifty years. Theirs was one of those Love at first sight stories. Like two peas in a pod, they were never apart.

When he had heart complication, she was with him all the time, fussing and worrying, all of the 45 days he was at the hospital. It was a happy occasion when he was finally discharged but that happiness was short-lived. She was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. The chemotherapy treatment went well. For fifteen days, their hopes were high. They made plans to travel before she turned feverish. The fever came and went for a week. She was finally admitted into the hospital where the fever worsen. She died on the following day.

He was devastated. He searched the hospital for a door, any door. He was going to jump.

They took her body home. He stationed himself by her side. He wept as he sang her love songs.

I was touched by his story. In this time and age, married couples do not stay married for long and divorce rates were astounding.  Will he survive his grief? I am inclined to think not.  He didn't. He walked into the shadows last night. He was not my biological brother but he was almost as good as one.

I am reminded of another story I read about in the papers when I was posted to the east. The story goes that Mr Judge lost his wife. He wrote her a poem after her death and sent it to the papers. The poem was published. On the following day, he shot himself in the head because he couldn't handle the grief.

Death and Taxes.  In Life, Nothing Is Certain but Death and Taxes.

Fresh Coconuts, Boon or Bane?

"Fresh Coconuts? Too cooling an effect. It'll give you body aches."

The lady on the next couch looked a little youngish to be dishing out this ancient line. Then again, I've been proven wrong on a couple of counts. Take that time about twenty years ago when I was shopping for some dried perishables at the Petanak Market. I was in my late thirties and not looking the part of a respectable Homemaker. (A respectable Homemaker, if you must know, is one who carried out their affairs in a concise confident manner. She dips her fingers into the perishables and knew at once how much its worth. She lifts the gills of fishes and knew how long its been out of the water.)

The trouble with perishables like dried shrimp, for instance, is that all of them looked suspiciously ambiguous. Well meaning shoppers will tell you to buy the pink whole pieces because they're fresher while others will tell you those are tainted with food colouring and you gotta go for the broken pieces which are healthier. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to these perishables so I usually went with the cunning plan, which is to tail someone who looked like a respectable Homemaker and buy whatever she bought.

So there I was vexing over some dried stuffs in the gunny sacks at the Petanak Market. Rendered immobile by indecision, I stood there looking at the stuff while my mind debated over the issue. Viola! Along came this ancient looking thing who looked every bit the respectable Homemaker. She was well-dressed and in her fifties and she had two fingers sticking into the perishables. Ahah, I thought. Once again, I'll take the cunning way out. I'll buy the stuff if she buys it. Trying to look the part I dipped my fingers into other perishables in the next gunny sack. Consider my surprise when the respectable Homemaker turned to me and asked "Are these fresh? Should I buy them?"

So Age is not usually synonymous with shrewdness. I suppose Exposure enters the equation at some point and besides, some people are born sharper than the rest. In any case, if the youngish looking smarty pants on the next couch thought that fresh coconuts will give you body aches, I should take heed.

Laying off the fresh coconuts were the first thing I did right. There weren't any diarrhoea this time. The gastric was within control and what do you know? The smarty pants was right about the body aches.

The Merdeka Palace

Some said that The Merdeka Palace was financed by the Sultan of Brunei. Others said that a few skulls were sacrificed for the building of this hotel. And I say I won't be staying at this hotel a second time for this is what happened the last time I was there.

I was having my daily afternoon nap at about 2pm when I felt a dark shadowy figure attempting to snuff the daylights out of me. Well technically, I was sleeping so there weren't much of a daylight in me but you get the picture. I couldn't breathe or move myself but felt a desperation within me to fight this thing. My friend Lydia had long prepared me for such a scenario so I obeyed my instincts at once. I yelled out "In the name of Jesus, go away!" three* times and miraculously, the shadowy figure disappeared, and I woke up shaken and stirred by this experience.

* A note here about the yell. You had to utter it three times to make it work. It had something to do with Peter's Denial. Most of all, you need to have the faith for it to work in the first place.

Bala's Chalet

I wondered how many of you have heard about Bala's Chalet. It was a colonial  British Boarding School with very basic amenities. The roofs were covered with inches of moss but the chalets were surrounded by a nice interesting garden.

The afternoon tea with scones and cream were the best I've ever tried.

There weren't much of a sleep for me here though. It was simply too dank and humid, but an experience worth trying just the one time.

And here's the part where I take you to The Merdeka Palace.

The Avillion

Chalets built out in the sea where all you hear all day are the waves lapping below you and the chirping of birds in the trees along the coasts. A dreamy holiday is what I called this place

The rooms are really comfortable too. You get a canopied king sized bed with another queen sized bed placed by the window where you look out at the sea water below. A glass door takes you to the open air veranda so you could watch the waves move at high tide. The bathrooms were covered  and an air well outside the bedroom allow you to ogle at the gushing sea water below, if you're into such things.

Like I've said, a dreamy holiday. There weren't any sleep for me here though. What if the Tsunami chose this moment to assail upon us?

But, I must tell you about Bala's Chalet next.  Really!

Eagles Ranch

This is another Team Building Resort where we were accommodated in individual log cabins with roofless bathrooms. Oh yes, it was disconcerting having to shower in a bathroom without any cover. You feel exposed is what you feel.

Its dark inside the cabin. Although windows allow some light into the bedroom, you are surrounded by dark brown wooden logs so how bright can you feel?

I like the veranda outside though. You are provided two cosy looking chairs with a coffee table between them. I spent hours there sipping on my cuppa, legs perched on that other chair, reading a book and listening to the birds chirp. Quite my cup of tea.

There weren't any sleep for me here though. All that dark woody logs reminds me of the bane of all creatures, the centipedes and I hate centipedes. Centipedes conceal themselves in the nooks and crevices between logs, don't they?

And guess what? This reminds me of The Avillion and I absolutely have to write about The Avillion in the next post.

The Tree House

I've never stayed at a Tree House so I was exhilarated when I heard that we were going to stay at one. It was one of those team building trips which brought us to Camp Permai many years ago and I am so in the mood to share this experience today.

The Tree House was built on wooden structures easily 30 feet in the air, if not more. Up in the bedroom, you are surrounded by glass walls on all three sides with the bathroom behind you. Bamboo blinds on the glass walls provide shade against the sun. You are actually among the forest canopies at the edge of the rainforest and perched precariously above the rocky coasts below. A small door in front opened to an outdoor veranda so you can take a closer look at that rocky coasts below. If that isn't near enough, wooden steps will take you further down.

It was a windy night when we were there and there wasn't much of a sleep for me. There were just two concerns on my mind:

1. Are the wooden structures strong enough to keep the Tree House from toppling into the rocky coast below?
2. Snakes climb trees, don't they? 

Still, it was some experience worth trying out for just the one time. But this experience reminds me of the Eagles Ranch, which I must tell you about in the next post.

P/s: Yes, these posts sort of digresses from the subject of this blog but I needed the distraction so please bear with me.

Chemotherapy 5

On my first session with the oncologist, she told me that although the chemotherapy session is scheduled on a 3 weeks cycle, it can be delayed by a week but can never be scheduled earlier.  That was great news. My current treatment (i.e. Biggie No: 5) was delayed by precisely one week. That gave me time to recuperate which was a good thing because my WBC is back to normal. (It had previously dipped below the minimum.)

However, my Total Cholesterol shot all the way up to 13.4.  I don't get this cholesterol thing.  My protein is low because I had cut down on meat. So where did all that cholesterol come from?  Nuisance is what I call them! I analysed the blood test report. Okay, the HCL was on the low side and I hadn't been exercising but the variance was quite modest by my standard.The LDL was way past the mark. We know that the LDL is affected by our diet so I don't get it.  I hadn't been feasting like a King since my Operation in July so what gives? Perhaps its all in the genes?

As for the ultrasound, it could not conclusively determine what that black glob in my liver was. A second more conclusive CT Scan will be scheduled at the end of my treatment.

The needle prick for the blood test was a breeze, It was over before I thought it started. The same goes for the chemo needle prick. These nurses are professionals. I guess my preceding prayers (and those of you who were praying for me) helped in a lot of ways. Thanks, pals.

The patients this time were mostly young ladies in their early thirties. I wasn't sitting near the chemo board so I couldn't see how many patients were scheduled for the morning session.

Midway through the session, an elderly Malay lady sitting opposite me complained about breathing problems.The nurses stopped the medication at once and called for her doctor. By the time the doctor arrived, the patient was shivering badly. They monitored her vital signs, allowed more room for her to recover and shot another round of steroids. Her session resumed after about half an hour.

The Chinese lady on my left discovered a 2 cm lump on her left breast in June this year. She went to Gleneagles to have the lump diagnosed. They advised her to remove the lump so she opted for the operation. It was a lumpectomy which meant that only the lump was removed and she retained her entire breast. In total they also removed 20 lymph nodes. When the biopsy report came out, she was shocked to hear that four out of the twenty lymph nodes removed were diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. The lump in her breast meanwhile was a harmless fibroid.  What does this tell you?

I'm so proud of myself today. I exercised for TWENTY minutes!  That's double my usual ten minutes and I abhor exercising. On the bright side, I'm feeling fine this morning. Then again, I'm flushed with steroids, all sixteen of them.

Oh, and by the by, the fourteen days quarantine is back again so I'm not allowed to receive any visitors. Thanks buddies for all your fine wishes and concern. We'll meet again when all this madness is over. This morning, I feel optimistic.