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Today I slept extra 1 hour. I woke up at 9.30am thinking it’s 10.30am. So from now on, the time difference between Russia and Malaysia is 5 hours.

It’s getting colder as well today. November coming. Usually the 1st day of snow will on Deepavali night every year. I remember this because I have to run to the Deepavali concert under the snow in whatever I’m wearing (cheongsam, saree, punjabi suit etc etc).

I have only another 4 days left to study for paediatric final exam. *stress *stress until pain in the head, pain in the ear, even arse also pain. At one point I thought I must have contracted some disease from the patients in hospital. Acute otitis media. Diptheria. Whooping cough. Meningitis. In case I fainted and never woke up one day, then you know why la.

I’m immunodefficit person now. Sometimes the teacher forgot about this fact. Even in children hospital, diseases which will only affect small children because they have weaker immune system also can affect me. I have been coughing non-stop for 3 days now. Don’t know which day, in which hospital I got infected. Pokoknya, I have classes in hospital everyday. Maybe I should go see a doctor but the procedure here is very troublesome and wasting time so during this busy period, I can’t afford to waste even 1 minute doing nothing. And don’t bother to ask my teacher, they are not helpful at all.

I have to study for Oncology, infectious disease and paediatrics in a day. I wish that 1 day consist of 48 hours. Time is not enough for me. I somehow feel very tired and exhausted due to my immune status now. I hope all my effort now is really worth it. When I reach home in winter, I hope someone would treat me good meals. I miss Korean and Japanese food.

And I miss him very much. How nice if I could fall asleep in his big arms now.
Right now I am still debating with my jealous father about me going over to UK for Valentine’s day because I might have to sacrifice spending CNY at home. BUT I have 5 weeks at home already, not too much to ask for if I only spend 7 days in UK with Ken right? Not like my parents will give me EXTRA big angpao if I stay at home for CNY. I know my friends, they all have generous relatives which give them minimum rm50 for angpao money. Hell, I have rich aunts but they are super kiamsap as. Even when I tell people, I got only rm10 angpao money from my aunt also they would laugh at me. =_= So does it matter at all to celebrate CNY or not? Some more, all the food eaten during CNY are very oily and unhealthy. I’m sure my mum will restrict this and that again, so what’s the point of celebrating? No money, no food.

Romance, suprises, Ken. I prefer this one.

For anyone who wants to find out more about cancer, Subang Jaya Medical Centre will be holding a talk on CANCER AWARENESS.

1. Nasopharyngeal/ Nose cancer on 23/9/07 (Sunday)

For all above talks:
Venue: SJMC cancer centre, south tower.
Time: 3.00pm - 5.00pm

Went to the urologist Dr. Peter Ng today.
My kidneys are…. errrhhh…. hmmm……

phewwww…..

SAFE!!!!~

My gawd, wasted half a day there in SJMC only. Like I diagnosed myself suspected, the swollen left kidney (hydronephrosis) was caused by massive intravenous of saline and antibiotic. Some more that sakai ultrasound doctor wrote such a SERIOUS report for me. Haiya leave me with my heart bup-bup-bup-bup everyday for the past 3 months. =_= worry for nothing.

When mentioned about radiotherapy, most of the people will give me this reaction,

“I know! I know! You use radio to play music to treat cancer patient because radio + therapy mah.”

Yes, you are nearly there. I remember the first radiotherapy I had, they were playing the old English song “When I need you…” eh, I dunno what the title is and who sings the song but I know how the song goes. And then the next song is “Yesterday” by Beatles. Feel so nostalgic in there.

Wei~ wrong answer la! Though SJMC did play some music for us because it will take about 10-20 minutes for each session of radiotherapy.

You all know that Radiology is the use of radiation in medical imaging and diagnosis a.k.a X-ray, CT, MRI etc.

Radiotherapy also known as radiation therapy is the medical use of ionizing radiation as part of cancer treatment to control malignant cells.

There are many types of radiotherapy, each type is used for different type of tumors according to the location of the body. So what are the types of radiotherapy? Eerrrhh sorry mates, I haven’t have my oncology class yet, so stay tune, I’ll back to this topic later.

The one used on me was Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). It is one of the most precise forms of external radiation therapy available because it uses sophisticated software and hardware to vary the shape and intensity of radiation delivered to different parts of the treatment area. The planning process for IMRT is complex so 1 week time in advanced is needed for the planning, but it has been shown to provide greater benefits to patients by improving recovery time and reducing side effects and complications associated with conventional radiation therapy treatments. Therefore IMRT treatment is also more expensive (was about 3x more expensive than conventional ones. IMRT cost rm30k, while conventional rm10k for my case.). IMRT is used to treat selected patients with prostate cancer, head and neck cancer (which is me! eheh) , breast & other gynaecological cancers, some brain tumors, peripheral soft-tissue extremity tumors and selected lung cancers.

This is the machine for radiotherapy. It consist of a medical linear accelerator which generates the photons, or x-rays. The machine is the size of a small room—approximately 10 feet high and 15 feet long. The patient lies on the treatment table, while the linear accelerator delivers beams of radiation to the tumor from various directions. The intensity of each beam’s radiation dose is dynamically varied according to treatment plan. For my case, 60 rad of radiation dosage is given so that it won’t do much damage on the surrounding nerves. (Mine was quite at dangerous zone because the important facial nerves, hypoglossal nerves, vestibulocochlear nerves are involved at that radiation area.) So thank God, I still can chew now!

A mould is placed before the treatment starts to secure the body at the specific lie/pose to make sure the precision of radiation because the points for radiation was marked earlier during the 1 week of planning.

The main side effects caused by radiotherapy includes:
- skin looks like as if it is burnt at the radiation area (apply baby oil on skin to prevent dryness. If blister or pus is found means got infection, look for your oncologist immediately, he/she will give you saline solution to clean the skin surface and hydrocortisone cream to apply on it.)
- dry mouth( drink a sip of water every 10minutes to prevent dryness in mouth and to avoid sore throat…. it is very suffering to feel pain from the tip of the tongue till the throat!)
- mouth ulcers and blisters (use special Biotene toothpaste, aspirin gurgle after each meal, use Gengigel mouth rinse and mouth gel for pain reduction and quicker healing of the ulcer.)
- feeling of heaty or high temperature but it is not fever! (drink plenty of water and fruit juices - honeydew melon, papaya is recommended)
- gastrointestinal discomfort; this effect varies depending on individual (I only had nausea and vomiting, which msot of the time I relieve it by sleeping. If it gets too serious please consult your doctor for medication)
-hair loss (I got hair loss as well, my bundle of hair becomes thinner but I did not lose too much of hair like other patient because the radiation area only affects the lower hairline.)

*Note: All the side effects listed are based on what I experienced and it is not necessarily everyone will have such side effects. If you feel any discomfort, do consult your oncologist immediately. Doctors are meant to help.

Sorry, I didn’t intend to make anyone worry about me. I also wish that my medical report is a fake one. I am very positive about my health till now and I know i’m doing fine…. or I think I am. But it’s just everytime when i see the not so convinving look on my doctors’ faces and my mum, I’m not sure what I am right now. I feel like i’m stepping on a mine. If I don’t take care of myself properly, I may die. If i take good care of my health, i’ll recover completely. Though Dr. chandran removed most of the tumor, but i can’t deny the fact that it had already spread to the adjacent lymph nodes. I am trying my very best to control all the triggering factor to prevent further changes to that little clusters of cancer cells left in my lymph nodes.

I’ll be staying away from handphones, computers for most of the time. Bear with me for a while. I might take longer time to reply smses and comments left here. Only 3 days i did not log in, somebody already messing here. I’ve clear all the mess he left here. I know the culprit. Thank you everyone for defending me. I’m off to rest now.