First chemo

Following our suggestion, my dad tried morphine again, preceded with oat and took Dequadin after. No vomit. The next one, he took oat and pork floss respectively. No vomit! Thereafter, he was ok.

He did, however, vomit a few times due to gas in his abdomen. Upon the hospice's nurse advice, we got him Gaviscon for it.

The hospice nurse's first day here was spent mostly on information gathering but she did answer all our queries and provided relevant advice regarding, say, constipation, vomiting, abdominal gas as well as services that hospice can provide. She is friendly and seems experienced. The following week she would probably bring along a doctor.

On the first day of chemo, we arrived at Penang GH about 8.15am. After registration, nurse weighed dad, took his blood pressure and took some blood to test for Hep B and C (only on first visit). Then waited to be called by the oncologist, who asked about his condition and whether he needed top-up for existing medicine. As a result, she prescribed medicine to manage the vomiting, the abdominal gas and the constipation. She also advised him to double the morphine dosage just before bedtime. Similar to the hospice's nurse advice, she also asked dad to take note the frequency of "breakthrough" morphine i.e. ad hoc morphine taken in between scheduled times.

Then he, along with other patients, were given fluid drips for hydration. According to the patient next door, the chemo drug (oh, only gemcitabine prescribed for my dad), is given to all patients at the same time once all patients are present. It was eventually given shortly before noon and done about an hour later. Rapid hydration for next 20mins and then it was done.

Only side effects dad felt were "hotness" and, shortly later, weakness. Still, he could walk by himself. Hopefully future chemo sessions would not be too bad.