First Day of Chemo

I was walking in the supermarket with my sister when I passed by the meat section in greater definition the PORK SECTION. What the fuck a Malay guy doing in a PORK section? Haha.. I don’t know, I’ve never eaten pork nor have I touched one. I’m just a curious dope. Anyway… I was walking by the Pork counter and I saw this part of the pork which says ‘SPARE RIB’. Now I began to wonder what and where is spare rib located in a pig. Do humans have a spare rib? Why is it called spare rib? What happens if I don’t have a spare rib? And what if I have a spare rib, am I a pig then? Muhahah… If it’s called a spare rib why then do we have to kill all those poor little pigs, it’s a spare isn’t it? I wanted to ask my brother but I stopped myself cos doing so means I would get smacked on the head. Thus my curiosity still lingers in my mind right now. Oh well.. Spare rib hmm… delicious spare rib…

So last day Friday I had my first session of chemotherapy. You know I hate chemotherapy because the side effects are horrible and I really mean horrible. I would rather die then going through it. You’d feel nauseous, giddy, your body would limp for no other reason sometimes, you become more hot tempered and you get irritated with the smell of food. As for me the side effects is not so bad, I’ll just get chest pains, irritated with the smell of food and more hot tempered but as far as I know I’m a natural hot tempered person.

I check in to Shangrila – NUH Ward 57 Bed 41 with my mum and dad. My sister was at the airport to pick my brother up. I was at the hospital around noon; I was placed in different ward before that cause ward 57 is full at the moment. Around 2pm I got into my bed and did whatever test like lung function test. I had to do a blow job on this tube thingy. I keep on imaging horny horrible things and I keep on laughing to myself. The technician who operates the blow job thingy is from China and she keep on telling me “BREATHE IN AND BREATHE OUT.. PUSH SOMEMORE.. YES MORE MORE MORE!~~!” Like as if she could get orgasms just by looking at me giving a blow job to that contraption. It looks easy to blow but trust me it’s damn hard.

I didn’t tell most of my friends that I was warded cause I don’t think its necessary besides its only 3 days but I did tell to my 3 ‘brothers’. I was back in ward by 4pm and having my arm pierced 3 times with the needles. I’m so used to the needles that I could tell the nurse where to exactly poke the needles. My chemotherapy is going to be 24 hours thus I can’t go home. Previously my chemo session only lasted about 3 but this time it’s 24 hours. Shucks. Hospital food sucks as usual. The western meal looks good but it got pork and that reminds me of the mysterious spare rib. Ok whatever.

In the evening Jess, Weiliang and Scott arrived. These two guys came right from camp. At night my grandma and my aunts came by. As usual my grandma always make a lot of fuss, she came with her soup tumbler containing some weird soup albeit a delicious one. Could be Spare Pork Rib soup.. haha I don’t know but all I know it’s a vegetarian soup. You know my grandma she is becoming a redneck sooner then I thought. She came to my bedside and she saw Weiliang and Jess. And do you know what she did? She looked at Weiliang and says “Girl you’re so pretty, you better take care of your boyfriend, so naughty” .What the fuck? She thought Weiliang is my girlfriend? The 3 of us just stare at my grandma. I told her Weiliang is a guy not a girl and he is my friend. My grandma still can argue with me, “It’s a guy meh? Not girl arr? Really arr? How come your friend look like girl arr? So pretty somemore”. Sometimes I’ve to give up when I’ve nothing to say and this is one of the moments. I guess that’s the problem when you’re a pretty boy, people mistaken you as a girl. So in the end my grandma made apologies to Jess and offered her a sweet. Really lame. My brother and sister arrived shortly after. Now the most retarded part is this, you see my sister has a crush on Scott before but Scott is a gay guy happily attached to another guy. But my sister is damn nuts on the brain, I think she is horny. She thinks she can turn all gay guys straight. Sore loser. Hey surprisingly my brother didn’t nag like I thought he would. That’s great. I asked him why he didn’t nag and he simply says “I know you can take of yourself so I’m not worried”. Oh really?

That night Weiliang stayed overnight in the hospital whereas everyone went home. Now my ward has 6 patients including me.

Patient 39, whose bed is on my left, is an elderly Chinese patient not sure what he is suffering. My brother told me from his experience as a surgeon he could tell that the patient would not last more than 1 month because his body was already bloated furthermore he was on the respirator all the time. He has a lot of family members visiting him. I have difficulty sleeping at night because his family members tend to wake him up in the middle of night just to make sure that he is breathing. My brother tells me that they shouldn’t wake him up but let him passed away peacefully. I asked my brother if he would do what he says if the same complications come upon me. He said no. There you go. No action, talk only. Anyway the patient died on early Monday morning around 1am. I knew he was dying or rather already dead cause when I lay on the bed that night I was facing him and I know he wasn’t breathing for quite sometime cause his respirator doesn’t show any condensation. His family members were sleeping around him but I thought I should just remain silent and let it be cause if that happens to me I want my family members to let me go. So I guess it’s true what my brother says that he wouldn’t last more than a month. 2 hours after his body was removed, another new patient checked in, he has problem with his kidneys and it need to be operated.

Patient 43, on my right, is a young Chinese chap, same age as me; I’ve forgotten his name though. He had food poisoning after eating sushi. The doctors made a thorough check up on him and found that he had lumps on his body. Doctors say that it could be a tumor thus he needs to be operated. Now, this guy is slightly paranoid and he is afraid that it would be cancer. When was I was diagnosed with cancer, I didn’t feel anything, no sense of remorse or afraid cause at that time I was very occupied with my school project since it’s my final year. So I told him not to freak out cause they have a cure for it even though I’m not sure what cancer he is suffering from. Remember I when I said that I’m afraid to bring my laptop along to the hospital cause it might cause electric failures? Well this guy actually brought his laptop and played Final Fantasy in the middle of the night. This guy was discharged on Saturday and he is due to be operated in two weeks time. I wished him Best of Luck cause he really needs it. A new patient replaced him the next day, an Indian guy. He had epilepsy. He was quiet when he checked in but the moment when his family members came to visit him, he started moaning in pain and asked him family members to feed him etc; once they leave, he would sit up by himself and read newspapers. It happened the next day too, he started moaning when his friends came over. I don’t dare to call him a loser cause he already got an epilepsy.

Patient 44 just across patient 43, a Chinese guy, suffers from bone cancer. He is young around 32 years old. He had his treatment two years back but he had a relapsed just like me. His belly was really bloated like a pregnant lady despite on his skeletal frame. He has to drain the liquid in his stomach daily. Apparently his cancer is Stage 4 so to save his life he has to amputate his leg but that was 2 years ago. So this time his legs is already rotten and there is no point to amputate his leg cause the cancer has already spread all over his body. Apparently this guy used to have a white collared job and earned 5 figures monthly. His family is going to put him in the hospice on Monday morning. My brother said not more than 6 months for him. It’s very irritating to hear my brother saying such things but that’s part of his job and already a habit.

Patient 42, across me, is an elderly Indian man who suffers from lung cancer. He also had a relapse. He doesn’t smoke though and he is not going to have a chemotherapy cause he doesn’t the side effects. So he is going to live his life to the fullest for the remaining years he have. He was discharged on Monday same time as me. He is very friendly always giving encouragement to the rest of the patients.

Patient 41, across patient 39, is an elderly man not to sure what he is suffering from but he has a swollen leg. Could be leukemia. He was discharged same day as me too…

Now you wonder how I get to know all this information. Well thanks to my mother, she is like a reporter, going around talking to people and giving me feedbacks. I even new that patient 65 which is in the last room right at the end of the wards has a tumor in head even though I never talked or see her in person and that lady across my ward has Kidney problems and she has 5 young kids. My mother is such a busybody.

My ward has no Television nor Air Conditioning unlike in other hospitals despite them being older than NUH, I wonder why. Weiliang stayed over for 2 nights, which is surprising cause usually he would be out at the bar or clubs. On Sunday there is a Standard Chartered Marathon. My brother, his girlfriend and Scott ran for the 42km event (or was it 43km?) Anyway my brother got 36th place which is not so bad. I like his goodie bags. The Adidas t-shirt is very nice.

On Monday afternoon I was discharged. The doctor told me that I have to give myself an injection everyday for 8 days to boost up my white cells. It’s something which diabetes patients would do. It’s not painful apparently. Oh well that’s it…. This entry is bit late but what the hell I was busy… I’ve yet to change my blog skin. This skin is way too old, too black and plain… Need something refreshing.