Last day of the year

31 December 2008, Wednesday

So many things have happened in this year. Challenges at work, father-in-law and my mum passsed away, the bank going through restructuring (right-sizing, whatever you call it, there will be nice people whom you have worked with leaving) and of course, the biggest discovery is about my illness.

Through this illness, I learn and discover a lot of things.
1. Money can't buy everything.
2. Rekindle many lost relationships. Many thanks to all the friends and relatives' well wishes and visits, despite their own busy schedule.
3. Spend more time with my kids, which I never use to have such luxury because of work commitments. As usual, they drive me nuts, but also brings me lots of laughter and sweetness when they are being nice to me, such as on nights that they put on body lotion for me.
4. There is always hope. Very important to stay positive.
5. Learn more in depth knowledge about my religion.

Although I have not been working for slightly more than 2 months, but my time has been spent fruitfully. My hubby says that I am still so busy as usual. Right, busy sleeping, medical appointments, watch DVDs, prayers, spending time with kids, yak on the phone, updating blog, etc... See, I am really busy.

Yesterday I went to visit the oncologist to review the CT scan result and the blood re-test. The CT scan showed that there is no new area of infected cells, which was a good news as he cautioned me that such cancer is usually aggressive and spreads quite quickly. At least, in my case, the situation is now under control and he thinks that I look very good externally. However, I asked him that it seems that the tumor marker has remained stagnant, hovering at low end of 300 (319), not much progress since the first cycle. For the present drugs, only 4% patients in the study are able to recover and 29% responded to the drug (meaning situation under control). So, I belong to the 29%.

We discussed about adding on new drug. But the new drug is costly $2,600 permonth (even on subsidised rate) and the effectiveness todate, based on a study of 42 patients, was only 7% of patients who responded to the drug. Hubby has also correctly pointed out that there is no study that investigate on the effectiveness of the current drug that I am using + the new drug. The new drug also has its sides effects, such as fatigueness, rashes on the skin (hubby says I need to do a faceoff, ha ha) and some other less known side effects such as diahorea. In the end, we decided to do the PET scan first and postpone the treatment for one week. The PET scan will be more effective to determine how active are the cancer cells in between treatments. So, PET scan on next Monday, see oncologist on Tuesday to review the results and start cycle 4 and see Chinese sinseh on Wednesday. At the very least, I get to enjoy the New Year holiday and will be going to relative's home to see firework.

So, looks like for the start of new year, my time will be spent on medical appointments and getting my kids on a more disciplined study schedule. I have set up a timetable for them and tell them since they have been too lax during the school holidays, need to get them into more serious work when the school starts. Call me kiasu, but Primary 2 work will be tougher than Primary 1, as Primary 1 is only a levelling for the whole cohort.

Happy New Year to one and all. Start a new year resolution and stick to it.