Here's My Story

Results as compared to 4 months ago :                                 Apr 2019          Aug 2019          Ref. range Total cholesterol           5.0                 5.5                  < 5.2 HDL ("good")               1.86              2.16                > 1.04 LDL ("bad")            ...

The day after surgery , dad's pain subsided and he could talk in sentences. In fact, he recovered gradually each day. He still couldn't walk with walker 2 days after surgery, as that was the doctor's expectation, and so he was kept one more day despite dad pressuring him to discharge him that night. He made substantial progress a day later and thus was discharged, with no charge for the extra day (because it was supposed to be counted another day if discharged after 2pm). Also, to our pleasant suprise, the final bill was around RM 39k. Yes, there's actually going to be a small amount of refund. Looks like the doctor followed through with his offer of discount . At this point, there is already significant improvement over pre-surgery conditions: pain in left leg no longer flares up whenever transition to lazy chair and he no longer has to take Oxynorm. Once a while he takes Norgesic/paracetamol for his back pain while sitting on a chair. Swelling of his legs, due to...

On Sunday, Ban and I checked my dad into Adventist Hospital ward in preparation for the surgery on Monday . The first problem we had was the deposit requested: 40k! This amount was nearly the same as the estimated medical bill. How did they expect people to fork out that amount under normal circumstances? We were further bewildered when the cashier asked, "Are you paying with cash or card?" What? There are people walking around with a bagful of 40k cash? It was fortunate that Ban was with me, and that my credit card was issued from Singapore. Hence, after some stressful moment, we managed to pay with combination of cash (we spent lots of time at the ATM machine 😬) and two credit cards. The ward was spacious despite being a "open" ward: it had only 7 beds. Nurses were helpful and professional. As expected, my dad was initially uncomfortable on the bed and wanted a lazy chair, which wasn't available. So he made do with adjusting the bed head's and/or le...

After the recommendation of getting hearing aid and the try out of samples at GH , I tried to get my mum to 20dB, a hearing centre recommended by GH audiologist, to obtain the hearing aid (cheaper with letter from GH, fyi) but it canceled many times due to mum's bad dizziness and/or migraine :( Recently, she finally felt well enough to go on this 35-min trip to Bukit Mertajam. We told them that mum tried 3 hearing aids and chose the Resound Enya other the other two, and that they all cost about RM 3.5k per piece. They were quite puzzled because it cost only RM 2.2k, which incidentally matched the information the first GH audiologist gave. In response to their query, I said that we were ok to get an aid that cost more than RM 2.2k but within our budget of RM 3k+ if it was significantly better than Resound Enya. They retested mum's hearing since GH didn't provide the graphical results. With the data, they used a computer software to calibrate Unitron Moxi RIC for mum to ...

Eight days after having consulted Dr D , we arrived at Adventist Hospital for appointment with Dr P. He remembered us as well the cancelation of the proximal femur replacement surgery. He told us that Dr D also spoke with him on the phone about my dad's case. We updated him the results of both Oct 18 and May 19 CT scan results, which showed mild progression. He checked dad and asked us a few questions to be certain the pain was emanating from his left hip and not elsewhere. He ordered an X-ray taken that day itself. Result showed that the bone was on the verge of fracturing, due to the lesions caused by cancer, and that that was causing the pain. Once again, he recommended the surgery, where 12cm of the femur would be replaced with a stainless steel rod (that last for 10 to 15 years; the most expensisve version, made of titanium, woud last 30-40 years) which would provide buffer against cancer progression (i.e. in case cancer was further down than what was shown on scans and ...

Since the last post , I won another 16 more times i.e. total of 22 wins of ranked matches. Yes, I reinstalled it after learning more via guides online and gameplays. There had been several patches with some major changes and consequences, one of which I am so happy about: the move from the legendary meta. Basically, the meta used to be like this: get to mid-game with solid Alliance bonuses. Thereafter, the player with the most number of tier 5 units and/or the most starred onces win, even if that meant (and often that was the case) breaking the Alliance bonuses. Oftentimes, you would need at least one of them to finish in the top 3. So stupid. Now, you can get to to top 4 (they extended to 4th position i.e. positions below that result in lost of ranked points) without legendary. Key to winning is getting as many 3-starred units as possible but retaining the importance of Alliance bonuses. It is only when players have equally strong in 3-starred units, bonuses and board control, tha...

The next day, we visited Dr D at Mount Miriam Cancer Hospital. This appointment was obtained much earlier, independent of the walk-in to consult PCU doctors . As always, there were many patients wanting to consult her but this time it took longer than usual for her to finally see us: almost 3.5 hours after the appointed time @@. It was worthed it though, as with all previous visits. We updated her with what had happened since the last time we consulted her. The main concern now was the pain in my dad's left leg and so we were seeking her opinion on what was the best thing to do. She confirmed with my dad that his priority now was to treat the pain in his leg. So rare for doctors to find out from patients their priorities. Oftentimes, they simply assumed what those are. Humph! She advised us to seek to consult GH oncologist, via PCU (since oncologist discontinued follow-up appointment, presumably because dad didn't want to do chemotherapy ), and get them to coordinate wi...

CW had been a great help for my dad so far. He did all that was asked for in a schedule, that he agreed in advance, and more. In fact, he pampered my dad hehehe. On a related note, each time my dad came back from hospital appointment, he felt exhausted. Although we didn't think it would help much, with CW's agreement, we asked him to follow along on a trip to Penang GH so that my dad could be wheeled in the push chair we brought along. That would had been difficult and time consuming for me alone to handle, on top of doing everything else e.g. drive and park car, getting medicine from pharmacy, etc. Conclusion: my dad wasn't exhausted and so we would be asking CW to come along to hospital. The trip we made was a walk-in to consult PCU, three days after the last appointment . The purpose was two-fold: Dad had watery poor and very soft poo twice each on Saturday, none on Sunday and small amount of normal poo on Monday. I was concerned that it would be a repeat of previo...

While waiting for CW to commence work , dad's condition improved (thankfully!): Pain less frequent. Oxynorm down to 3 times daily, from 5 Swelling slowly decreased Slowly regained strength, where eventually he could get down from lazy chair unassisted (yay!) The last one was quite important: at night, before going to bed, we could help dad to get onto the lazy chair without worrying about him getting out of it in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, during the week before his next appointment with PCU on Friday, he started having problem with bowel movement: gradually pooed lesser and then finally constipated for 3 days. This coincided with the increased of Oxynorm intake from 3 to 4 / 5 times daily. PCU doctor recommended the following: Just for that day: once get home, take 6 tabs of bisacodyl + 20ml of lactulose Next day onward: replace bisacodly with Senokot (purchased outside) 2 tabs twice daily If still cannot poo by Monday, then at least I (i.e. dad doesn...

Fortunately, despite the fiasco , dad came around after I had a rather long talk with him: I assured him that we weren't trying to abandon him; we were merely addressing his medical needs I reconfirmed with him that his priorities were less pain and more movement He would resume seeing the orthopaedic oncologist and to continue the bone drug (pamidronate) infusion if they recommend it Nursing home was back on the table i.e. comparing trained lived-in caregiver and the home However, later, even he exclaimed how expensive trained lived-in caregiver was and so we downgraded it day trained caregiver for 4 hours. Meanwhile, my sister managed to get a medical graduate who was willing to be dad's daytime helper for at most a month while waiting for his posting. We then presented the following options to dad, along with their upsides and downsides: (a) Nursing  home + 24 hrs + medically trained nurses and doctors + staff helps to administer medicine + exercise and acti...