Monday, February 21, 2005

boinkboink

aiyah.....got to go out for a couple of hours today to find:

1. my insurance and roadtax are not ready yet (JPJ offline...ye la tuuu)
2. desperate housewives episode 7 tak siap download lagi!!

baargh..

and i've got to fill up a performance evaluation form for my workplace...

gotta go now. will tell u the story of my splenic biopsy another time soon.

ciaoao!

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

weeehooo

went back to the hospital last night. upon my arrival, the nurses told me that my medication wasn't available. Whatt??!! aiyyaa...why la didn't they call me first! called my mum right away to come back and pick me up. no point staying in the hospital if there's nothing to do, right? the hospital ran out of the antibiotic i was on, so dad went to a private hospital to purchase a couple of tablets for me. spent the night at home last night. woke up with a couple of mosquito bites, but it's better than spending another lonely night in the cold hospital room.

so early this morning i made my way back to the hospital. according to the doc, my x-ray shows much improvement from last week. official results for the lung biopsy came back negative (as always), however, it says that there are no traces of fungi, TB or leukemic infiltration. Alhamdulillah. doc also informed me that the results from my bone marrow trephine was excellent, there are no traces of granuloma (ok,what the hell did i just write??). We're still going for the spleen biopsy since i'm starting to feel some discomfort around that area. other than that, my protein level is rather low, so i need to work on that (a nice big steak, if my mum permits! hihi).

did nothing else in the hospital. yesterday's blood count results showed my haemoglobin count was 7.2 so they wanted to transfuse blood. i asked the nurse to repeat the test by taking a sample from my arm instead of from my neck line. a lot of times, blood sample taken from the neck line tend to be a bit diluted. since there was nothing else to do, i decided to go home. promised the nurses that i would call them in the evening to see if i need to come back to the hospital.

so...i just called the ward 5 minutes ago. the nurse informed me that my medication is still not available. my repeat blood test results came back, haemoglobin count 7.6. looks like i will have to get some blood transfused soon. but since i have to purchase a transfusion filter, the blood transfusion can't be done until tomorrow. the conclusion is, i get to spend another night at home!! yahooooo!!!

ok...i'm going to go find something else to do now. i've been staring at this monitor since i got back, chatting and watching Desperate Housewives (which is an awesome series, by the way).

babai!!

Monday, February 14, 2005

Monday blues...

fuh...what a day.

took my weekly x-ray today. from what i see, it looks clearer than last week's (not that i'm an expert, hehe). we'll wait for what the doctor says tomorrow.

then i came home...saw my cat Owen lying in the cage. He's been like that for the past few days, so i made my brother take him to the clinic yesterday. The vet suspects he's been hit by a car. On the way to the clinic, the poor cat pee-ed in the carrier, and came back smelling like awful!!! yeurgh! I asked everybody at home to help bathe the cat, but nobody would. I would do it myself, but if i do my mum will be furious. So in desperation, i called Pets Wonderland (groomers on leave), Groomingdales (too far from home), and finally my vet. Luckily the vet said she would do it for me....for 50 bucks!! Oh well, doesn't matter-lah..

ok...got 10 mins to get ready to go back to the hospital. may not be coming home tomorrow. i have to get my neck line re-stitched...ouch!

bye bye!

Sunday, February 13, 2005

to those who asked...

i was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in Sept 2003. you can read more about it here.

it's been almost 6 months now, and i'm currently treating my lung infection and preparing myself for stem cell transplant.

bye!

Saturday, February 12, 2005

happy saturday! (i'm running out of cool titles)

"knock knock"
"come in!"

nurse : kak, kalau masuk Ampho-B pun akak kena masuk pethadine ke macam Abelcet?
me : hah?? takde stock Abelcet ke hari ni?? yes yes, kalau Ampho-B ntah2 kena bagi double dose pethadine.
nurse : haha, mana boleh bagi double.
me : ok, make sure Ampho-B tu habis dalam 5 jam. hari tu lama sangat nak habis teruk saya menggigil. u datang check tau!!
nurse : ok ok.

Last night they ran out of stock on Abelcet, the antifungal i've been receiving. So they've decided to replace it with Ampho-B. It's the same drug, but with Ampho-B, i had very bad reactions, which is why I'm getting Abelcet instead. I informed my parents that they're switching the drugs for the night. Alamak...wrong move i think...it was past midnight and i think i made my parents worry that I might get a bad reaction during the night. Told them that I will be OK and that i will call the nurses if anything happens. Luckily I slept like a baby through the night (and through the morning haha) so there were no complications, thank God.

Oops...is it 2PM already? I better go do something else with my precious time at home now. The doc came in late today and i didn't leave the hospital till noon. Looks like I don't have much time today. Yesterday I left the hospital earlier, so i followed my mum to the supermarket, trying to freak people out with my neck line. keh keh keh. No chance for that today, i guess.

ciao miao

Friday, February 11, 2005

Happy Friday

don't know what to write today...so since it's friday, i thot i'd copy down something from the Qur'an.

Dan (ingatlah kisah) Ayyub, ketika ia menyeru Tuhannya: "(Ya Tuhanku), sesungguhnya aku telah ditimpa penyakit dan Engkau adalah Tuhan yang Maha Penyayang di antara semua penyayang." (83) Maka Kami pun memperkenankan seruannya itu, lalu Kami lenyapkan penyakit yang ada padanya dan Kami kembalikan keluarganya kepadanya dan Kami lipat gandakan bilangan mereka, sebagai suatu rahmat dari sisi Kami dan untuk menjadi peringatan bagi semua orang yang menyembah Allah. (84)
(Surah Al-Anbiya': 83-84)
Maybe I'll have more things to write about next week.
bye!

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrate!

The deal with my doctor of going home whenever i get bored didn't work out. Another doctor came on FT day and changed my medications. The new medications take a long time to finish in total, so I couldn't go home till today. The plan now is to stay in the hospital at night, get the medication IV-ed while i'm sleeping, and go home after the doctors' rounds. I will have to come back to the hospital to get the next round of medication. I plan to do this everyday for as long as i can. Dad says I should try to minimize my stay in the hospital to avoid catching other bugs (I totally agree!!)

My condition (lung infection) has improved since the last time i wrote. The fluid has completely disappeared. For those interested, I'm now on Linezolid, Abelcet, Ciprobay and Voriconazole. I'm being treated on an empirical basis, since every single thing that was sent for culture has come back negative (blood, tissues, etc.)

Last wednesday, i went for a CT Scan (lung & abdomen). The results showed that some of the lesions in my lung has disappeared, but a couple new ones appeared. The lesion in my spleen has enlarged. To give the doctors something to work on (since they don't know what kind of bug is infecting me), I agreed to have a lung biopsy. Was quite nervous before the procedure. The radiologist constantly warned me not to move while the needle is in my lung. He said even if the needle moved a few millimeters, he would have to do it over again. At one point, blood went up into my mouth. I didn't dare tell them, neither could i open my mouth to let the blood come out. In my dilemma, I just decided to swallow the blood back. It was disgusting, but i'd rather swallow blood than have the radiologist poke my lung again. I was stiff as a statue the whole time, in the end they said that I did a really awesome job during the whole procedure. This was done in another hospital. After the whole thing, I got to go back to my hospital in an ambulance. My first ride in an ambulance! Quite cool...(yes i memang jakun)

The results from the lung biopsy came back negative, they didn't grow anything. So we're now basically back to square one. Now they've decided to biopsy my spleen. Aaaaaaarggghhh...why not just biopsy my spleen in the first place!!!??? And I don't know if it will make any difference. Oh well. As everybody tells me, sabar je lah....

Ok lah...better go eat. Have to go back to the hospital in a couple of hours.

Ciao my friends!

GONG XI FA CHAI!!!