End of Cycle 4

-
With bated breath, we look at the blood test result. Since we didn't know exactly which liver function test to look out for, I tried finding one that has its upper limit in the 40s. I found only one: ALT, with upper limit of 41. The reading was exactly 41!

Although it was significantly below 60+, it was still way above his usual 20+. However, we thought that he would be allowed to do chemo because it wasn't flagged out as "high" by the pathology lab and that there would be a 14-day gap before the start of Cycle 5 Day 1 chemo after this second session of Cycle 4.

Luckily we were right! Phew. Kidney function reading stabilised just within the normal range. Dad gained a little weight. Not a problem. In fact, there was good news (as acknowledged by the oncologist): dad added duration of his walks and also lengthened the time between morphine intakes from 4 hours to 5 and then to the current 6 hours. Yet, there was no pain in his leg. If he crosses over 6 hours, then there is slight pain. So the current limit is 6 hours. This "experiment" was done due to the oncologist advice: it's how we find out whether dad still needs the morphine or not.

Let's hope the next tumour marker reading drops further!

Comments

William said…
Never knew chemo got so much monitoring.
November 5, 2017 at 10:14 PM
Jaded Jeremy said…
William,
It's all done in a single blood test: full blood count, liver function test and kidney function test. Done before every single chemo session.
November 6, 2017 at 11:33 AM
Twilight Man said…
You always wrote very detailed and nice reports. Your dad's heading towards good recovery though it takes time. Most patients I had seen, would deteriorate all the way down.

While I support both Western & TCM for healing, I found the TCM's elements as most accurate to determine a patient's lifespan. I used that guide to monitor both my late parents. You can read this useful link >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_body_in_traditional_Chinese_medicine
November 6, 2017 at 1:01 PM
Jaded Jeremy said…
Twilight Man,
Thanks for your compliment. It's also a good source of recollection if, in future, a doctor asked for the history of his cancer.
Hmmm after a quick scan, I don't see anywhere in the link that relates to "lifespan".
November 6, 2017 at 1:26 PM
Twilight Man said…
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water are the 5 elements that human beings have. When all the 5 are shut down, the person dies. Example was my late mum had all her vital organs shut down and bed ridden, leaving only her breathing which is Fire. So I could monitor from the wood, earth, metal and water shutting down much earlier. When there's only Fire left, that's almost the end which could be weeks or 2 months left for me to prepare for funeral arrangements. I hope I managed to explain something.
November 7, 2017 at 3:27 PM
Jaded Jeremy said…
Twilight Man,
Oh yes, you told me this before. I forgot. Thanks.
November 7, 2017 at 3:36 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - character build (Part 1)

-
Here are the character builds for my current run (with the help of Ban): Kyrie Fellblade/Marked Counter: Slow Secondary passives: Execute, Life Font Fellblade itself is a good class because of the various conditions it can inflict and most importantly they can inflict Sleep. Iirc, the only other human class that can do this is Gadgeteer. Their passive Malice increases the chance of landing it by 10%. Fellblade pairs well with Marked because both use ATK and MND in their offensive abilities. Also, Fellblade's abilities are mostly short range whereas Marked has some long range abilities. Execute for more damage. Life Font is for suvivability. Ban opined that with two healers, there's no need for Life Font but I discover that it enables Kyrie to survive just enough for a healer to heal her up, after having received massive damage. Ban advocated for Marked/Fellblade for superior Speed (1.00 vs 0.92) and defense (heavy armor). I resisted this for a long time because I
Read more

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - character build (Part 2)

-
(continue from Part 1 ) Yates Anatomist/Wizard Counter: Cripple Secondary passives: Blessed One, Smart Casting Anatomist is the best healer in game due to the passive Legendary Healer, which also then boost the amount of self-healing by Blessed One. Although Ban thinks Anatomist's Dark spells are sufficient in dealing damage and so he suggests Alchemyst as Yate's secondary class, I choose Wizard for the following reasons: Quite often, demonic creatures have Dark immunity and other creatures have immunity to other elements. So having Dark, Water, Fire, Earth and Thunder spells enable Yates to cast the most suitable spell, especially when the enemies are vulnerable to certain elements. Flexible casting :) Smart Casting is useful so that I don't need to worry much about the positioning of the enemies relative to my other characters when using Mass Healing and the area effect damage spells. As stated in previous post , there "are so many devastating Skill ba
Read more

Sudden lower body pain

-
About two weeks ago, my mum developed pain in her pelvic bone, much more on the right side, and squeezing pain in her legs, with occassional spike in pain. She was managing it with paracetamols, 2 tabs three times daily.  Since we didn't know any particular orthopedist in private hospitals (it was only recently that I remember Dr Prashant ), I targeted one at KPJ Penang Specialist Hospital since it's in mainland Penang (instead of on the island). I made appointment for my mum with Dr Joehaimey since he has the earliest suitable date. The moment she walked through his door, he immediately asked her whether the pain from her right side. We were both quite impressed. He was in turn impressed with mum's prepared list of medication that she presented to him on a piece of paper. The key information seems to be the surgery she had back in 2011 to insert titanium plate and screws in her lower spine. He guessed that there's accumalated wear and tear due to aging. So to confirm i
Read more