2006

My friend Ms K is also on her healing journey from lung cancer. She shared her New Year resolutions with me, I in turn would like to share them with you...

Ms K says:

For me, after groping around for a few months, uncertain on how I should maintain my health, I am now more "settled" and the following is what I would continue to adopt:

1. Trust God and pray for his guidance in all I do (including eating), and be thankful always.

2. Nutrition is very important in order to maintain health. In addition to supplements recommended by the doctor (not any direct selling product), I will eat (with thankful heart) what is provided me, listening to the inner voice which will prompt me whether I should eat that stuff or not. Of course it is prudent to be careful but don't be ultra. Often, I have people telling not to eat this or that and if I am quite happy not eating them, it's ok. But if I feel like eating them and would otherwise feel deprived and unhappy if I don't, then I will eat just a bite or two of the "forbidden" food. EG, I love durians which people said are not good for cancer but recently I ate 3 seeds and was happy about it.

3. I don't want cancer to own me and to restrict me from eating what I crave or what I wish to do. I want to be happy instead of letting cancer get the better of me and frightening me. I should not be afraid because God is with me.

4. Exercise is important - especially qigong so I make time for it.

5. Do not isolate myself - enjoy family and friends and make myself useful.

Wish you all the very best and that next year will be an improvement on this year.

Happy New Year 2006, everyone :)

* F * R * I * E * N * D * S *

In my healing journey, I have a few die-hard friends who have been with me since I was diagnosed. Many friends may visit or contact you in the beginning, but taper off eventually. This is ok. I know they have other obligations and I know they do think of me. But these die-hard friends would make the effort to visit me regularly, get me gifts, called to talk or just a plain smiley sms.

You know who you are. I want you to know I am eternally grateful and enjoyed every moment of the time you gave to me.

Just by being there is good enough for me.

Inspire (or how to be a good visitee)

I try to put my visitors immediately at ease by cracking a joke the moment our eyes meet. When asked how am I, I do convey my actual situation but put a positive spin on it. But if I am not in an optimistic mood, I do tell those who can handle it. These are close friends whom I know can handle it.

How to be a good visitee? (sorry for this horrible word...hehe)

I still remember when my friends converged in Seremban Hospital, when the cancer diagnosis was first known. I cried in front of my friends. I still remember the sadness and look of helplessness on their faces. I also remember saying something positive and the room atmosphere lighthen up.

We all want to see hope. We embrace positiveness but it has to come from the heart. No use proclaiming we will heal when deep down we think we are not going to make it. Getting to the decision to heal is something we have to do on our own.

But I do try to make every visit a healing opportunity. Lighten up. Laugh. Inspire yourself and your visitors. Let it be at the end of the visit, you have healed a little bit, and your visitor was inspired by your spirit, and both you have raised hopes.

Even if death is inevitable, why make things worse? Death is a great opportunity to appreciate the time left, and show that the human spirit is inconquerable in death. Anyway, death is a natural process of life so why be afraid or fight it.

At ease (or how to be a good visitor)

Your friend or relative is ill. This illness is well known for its terminal outcome. Do you feel awkward? What do you say to him or her? Would you sound insensitive? would your action make him or her feel worse?

I have always enjoyed visits from friends or relatives who came as if I am not ill. We joke. We laugh. We reminisce. We dream. Of course we talk about my illness, but it is not the focus. In those visiting moments, I forget about pain and any discomfort.

I would like to share an anecdote in Dr Phang Cheng Kar's book "Don't Worry, Be Healthy- A Buddhist Guide for Health & Healing". This particular chapter in the book is written by a monk; Reverand Ajahn Brahmavamso.

A nun told the reverand that she feel worse when some friends and relatives who visit her became sad & miserable seeing her dying. She said,"It's bad enough dying from cancer, that it's too much to deal with my visitors' emotional problems as well."

She went on to say that he was the only friend who treated her as a person, not as someone dying: who don't get upset at seeing her gaunt and wasted, but instead told her jokes and made her laugh. So the reverand told her jokes for the next hour, while the nun taught him how to help a friend with their death.

Ajahn Brahmavamso wrote that he learnt when you visit someone in hospital, talk to the person and leave the doctors and nurses to talk to the sickness.

His chapter also mentioned that everytime someone in the hospital bed was asked"How are you feeling today?", it may put that person in psychological stress because he or she may be compelled to lie; to say they are better when they are not. If they were to tell how they really feel lousy, it would disappoint the visitor and makes everyone sad.

I think it depends how well you know each other, and how at ease both sides are. But ultimately, we all want the visit to end with both the patient and visitor happier and more hopeful. Not just for the visitor to see how well (or not) the patient is doing, or to just fulfill a social or familial obligation, but to help in the patient's healing.

...those you can't BS to...

Christmas eve saw childhood friends converging to my home. ACS classmates Cheah, Fong, Wonga, Kah Cheng, Dr Foo, Kok Keong came, then we had lunch at my favourite fishball noodle stall. Dr Foo had to leave early, and James Chin joined us later at the stall. It's great to meet and talk about old and new times.

These are the friends you don't have to put on pretences. Friends whom you know their character because you have been following their "development" since we are kids. You know who they really are, and they know who you really are.

Happy New Year, everyone :)

Stay hungry, stay foolish

Yii Tan sent me this a few months back. I re-read it and the impact of Steve Job's speech remained as powerful as the first time I read it.

Read his Stanford commencement speech here.

Rage, anguish and other regrets

I am known as the Mr Nice Guy among my colleagues. One who has an almost Buddha-like calmness under stressful situations (hej, this was they say!) Especially from my non-Asian friends; sometimes I think they read too much about the stereotypical stoic Asian mystics...haha ;)

Yes, for those outside the immediate family circle, I may be the epitome of calmness and niceness. But I am a very short tempered person to my immediate family. This is the part of my personality which causes me much stress and distress. I explode in rage fast and most of the time it is for trivial reasons. Most of the time I regret this in the aftermaths.

I read about books about how the cancer may be telling us that something is just not right in our life. Some authors suggested we talk to our innerself to ask what is the cancer trying to tell us.

This inner rage has been with me since I left home for university in the late 1980s. I don't have the best of relation with my parents. I felt somehow we drifted apart. I do love them,feel for them...when I am far away from them, but the moment I am with them, somehow the communications line just got cut off.

Intellectually, I know it's not right, but emotionally, I am like locked in a vicious circle of rage and anguish which I just can't to solve. And this is not about the fact that I was adopted. I have never regreted of being adopted by the Foo family.

One of the things I regret most is my dad passing away without me telling him how much I admire and appreciate him. Not that it is a normal Asian dad-son thing to say such things in the open! He went away without me really knowing if he knew how I really felt. Now, I can only send him metta and share merits with him.

I still have another chance. That is to improve my relationship with my mom. This may be my last chance.

The cancer has sort of slapped me into awakening. I noticed that my cancer cells became naughtier everytime I lose my temper. Like this recent incident; it came after I threw a tantrum. Like the tale about Sakka , getting angry is like adding fuel to the fire.

Like a child

Yesterday some relatives came, including two kids; one is around 7 and the other is 9 years old. It was in the evening so there are mosquitoes in the living room. The adults were complaining about the nuisance and trying to kill the mosquitoes.

For the kids, they saw it as an occasion for fun! They were squealing and jumping all over the place trying to see who kills the most mosquitoes. The house were filled with laughter and energy.

What a contrast to the adults! Of course, either outlooks did the mosquitoes any good, but it's the way the children reacts to a situation. Adults see only gloom, irritation and fear, while the kids had a whale of a fun time.

Maybe it's time we adults see the world in the eyes of the child; once in awhile :)

From within

It is time for difficult decisions...

The latest valley is reason for pause. My oncologists have presented treatment options for this relapse:

For the lung:
Iressa everyday until my current stock is exhausted (I got 2-week supply, then access situation; if the pleural effusion persists, then commence chemotherapy for the lung. I am going to NCI on Monday to have another x-ray to check the pleural effusion. I have asked Dr Kana to tap the fluid away if they persists. He recommended an ECHO scan to check my heart first for the breathlessness.

For the backpain:
Intravenous medication Zomecta for the bone metastatis to replace Bonefos.

I am accessing these options in consultations with Dr Pang too. But the final decision lies with me.

A lot of thoughts churn within me these few days. If you remember my November blogs on death and dying , I am in peace with death. What I want is easy death and peaceful dying.
And addressing cancer is a very expensive affair.

I would like to stop taking Iressa and other conventional medication. They are just too expensive and I think money can be put to better use. It's not like these therapies can cure my metasized non-small cell lung cancer.

I have to weigh the possible side effects, benefits and the survival rates of going thru these therapies...and of course, the costs. I have did a quick research on the survival rates of those who took the conventional path such as chemo, compared to those who uses herbs, and the survival rates do not differ much, albeit quality of life skews more towards those eshewing conventional path. Of course, I know different individuals may differ in their responses.

Moreover the possible side effects from chemotherapy were burned too deeply into my psyche. I have to do a mind transmutation to be confident that chemo will help in healing with minimal or no side effects.

How long can one's finances keep up? I think the window of relatively good health they have given me is sufficient. I am grateful for that.

I am at a crossroad.

I would like to concentrate on healing from within. I want to use qigung, diet and psychological measures for the rest of my healing journey.

One may say I am giving up.On the contrary, this decision to go au naturel takes lots of time and commitment. Compare doing qigung and managing your emotions to popping pills or lying on the bed with chemo flowing into you. So far I have combined oral conventional therapies such as Iressa with "esoteric" therapies like qigung, now I want to discard the conventional therapies.

It is really a big step into the relatively unknown.

Grandma's

Today is the 1st anniversary of Grandma's demise, according to the Chinese calendar. 3rd Uncle and aunty, cousin Ah Tze and family and my family held a simple prayer ceremony to commemorate the occasion.

We talked about old times. Uncle told about his adventures in pre-war KL when he and 2nd Uncle nursed Grandma after she have birth to my mom; how he could only cook egg+ginger as confinement nourishment for Grandma because they were very poor at that time.

He also spoke of how Grandma once chased after a bully who hit him until he bled from the head. That's a surprising side of Grandma which I didn't know; she was very petite and such a sweet gentle soul; guess Grandma can turn into a lioness when her son was bullied!

And of course we talked about 3rd Aunty's talent in cooking and making delicious festivies cookies. I blogged about my happy childhood memories of her here.

Thank you

Thanks to everyone who wrote to encourage me in this latest climb-up-the-valley episode. Your words gave me the extra "ooomph" to spur me on :)

hmmm...

...pleasant surprise...

...the pain in my back gradually dissipitated while I was at NCI after meeting Dr Kana. This morning, I could hardly notice it. Only the right fingers weakness is still there.

Now, what have I done? I know the days before yesterday I was doing Reiki + Qigung like they were going out of style. And yesterday before bedtime I called Khadijah of CAcare to ask her for specific tips to tackle pleural effusion; she suggested some Chi Dynamics' qigung moves and the herbs I have taken earlier in March. So I refered to the Chi Dynamics' book and practised the specific moves for the lungs.

On top of these exercises, I have resumed taking Iressa everyday and resumed my medicine from China which I stopped to take another concoction of Chinese medicine after my brain seizure.

Felt better today. Live and let live eh...

It's back...

The effusion made an anniversary come-back. Nearly half of my left lung is filled with fluid; the cause of my breathlessness. The spine has multiple spots of lesions. This could be the reason for the pain near the spine and weakness in my right fingers, especially the index and middle fingers. These were revealed in today's x-rays at NCI.

The options are now to resume taking Iressa everyday to see if this can salvage the situation. Of course combining this with qigung and reiki, and also resuming to my previous strict diet. If my current stock of Iressa is exhausted, and the effusion and symptoms are still there, Dr Kana said chemotherapy would have to be done. He has given me the options of four chemo-combination.

The spine lesions would have to be dealt with intravenous infusion of chemical, Bonefos don't seem to fully arrest the lesions. This will be done separately from the chemo for the lungs.

Certainly not good news. I have around 2 weeks supply of Iressa, let's see how it goes. I am disappointed but not too upset. Let's see how well and fast I can climb up this new valley in my healing journey.

Here we go again...

The last few days, I have been working on my qigung, meditation and Reiki to address the back pain. Some days the pain lessens until I don't notice it, some days it came back. Usually I lie in the bed as the pain is hindering my daily activities. Mom is cooking for me as I find the pain too distracting.

The pain has affected the strength of my right hand's fingers. They are noticable weak. I suspect the bone metastatis has reach the pain threshold again, after the earlier C6 vetebrae metastatis. I will call Dr Kana for an appointment tomorrow. I anticipate another session of radiotherapy to the spine...

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with Dr Pang the preventive medicine physician. If I manage to get Dr Kana, I can just drop by NCI after Dr Pang's appointment.

Reiki and Medicine Buddha

Reiki Master Michael came on Friday to my home together with his partner Winstonne. He checked the energy condition of my house, and taught me how to bring more positive energy into it. He also inscribed some Reiki symbols at a few locations of the house, particularly my bedroom.

He also evoked the Medicine Buddha to be present in my house. He chanted and moved around the house to welcome the Medicine Buddha.

He checked my energy level, I admitted to him I did not practice Reiki 2 because of I had a bout of self-pity with the recent back pain. He urged me to continue my practice.

well...well...well...waddaya know...

See what comes up first when you google "hee boon" + "cancer". Drats, my blog's URL only showed up in the 2nd page of the Google results... :)

...Oh! Ye of little faith..!

It is easy to be optimistic and courageous when things are going fine or improving. The crunch comes when setback occurs, then let's see how you deal with it.

When I detected pain and breathlessness last Tuesday, I had a sudden depression. I threw a tantrum, shed tears and my resolve crumbled. Yes, optimism is such a fragile thing!

I neglected to practice my qigung and Reiki regularly when I needed it most, and thoughts of frustration assailed me. As the pain at my back became sharper, and the breathlessness became more noticable, the memories of my previous pericardium effusion and breathlessness episodes came back. Doubts began to creep in whether what I have been doing is correct.

I went back to the books that have given me comfort in the earlier days of my healing journey; Ian Gawler's "You can conquer cancer" and Shivani Goodman's "9 Steps to reverse or prevent cancer & other diseases". Re-read them and they helped to rebuild my resolve. Reading them again with new eyes since first reading them 7 months ago.

Well, I have asked for small setbacks to make life interesting...so let's make this a mini crisis!

7 Dec 2004

7 Dec 2004. The morning after. I woke up in the ICU. Still coughing.

The doctor not sure what was wrong. The doctor said he need drain the fluid from my right lung. Not sure if he applied any local anasthetic. He poked a small metal tube (ard 1mm diametre) into the right side of my back to access the lung. A rubber tube connects to the metal tube.

He must be very good because I don't feel a thing. He asked me to breathe deeply to push the fluid out. It was over in a few minutes with nearly 1 litre of clear liquid drained into the glass canister.

That's was it. I spent the next few days in the ICU, with daily blood taken from the wrist - ouch..that's painful. Remembered nurses bathing me nearly everyday..hehe

On the 10th was moved to a first class room. The doctors pronounced that all is well with the pericardium and the lungs. The fluid didn't return. The doctors said I am still coughing because of the remainder fluid in the pericardium.

I was discharged on the Saturday 11th. Went to stay with Gloria and family till Monday. Had great Malaysian meals by Gloria.

That was my first brush with my cancer. I was still oblivious of the immensity of the crisis. I thought it was just a very bad chest infection. It was only on 3 March 2005 I found out it's cancer.

Thanks to all who helped me thru this 1st crisis. I were to meet more good samaritans along my healing journey...

6 Dec 2004 - Hari ini dalam Sejarah (Today in History)

Reached Buenos Aires on 5 Dec 2004, feeling a slight breathlessness but overall fine. Met by staff of the Malaysian embassy. Excited at the prospect of my first visit to South America. Noticed most of the cars here are of French or European make. Reached the hotel. Tired. Slept well thru the night.

6 Dec 2004. Woke up feeling lousy. Breathlessness acute. Went out to buy water and found myself gasping for breath after a few steps. COP 10 was to start morning today but I decided to go in the afternoon until I feel better.

It was not to be.

Condition got worse. The breathlessness got worse when I lie down. Little did I know fluid were accumulating in my pericardium and right lung; the doctors eventually drained nearly 2 litres of fluid from both organs.

Called Gloria who is the 2nd Secretary/Head of Chancery at the Malaysian embassy. She met me and the rest of the Malaysian contigent at the airport yesterday. She sent her staff Marianna to meet me and get me to the hospital.

Reached the Hospital Aleman and was asked to do an x-ray. The x-ray taken was bad because of language problem. I thought the x-ray technician was asking me to breathe when I shouldn't!

The doctors were unsure what is causing the breathlessness. A ultrasound scan was performed. The doctors discovered fluid in my pericardium. An operation to drain it was decided. In the meantime, my breathlessness got worse. I threw up the dark spaghetti I had for lunch, and even shit in my pants, although I didnt know it.

Gloria and Mr Cheah the Undersecretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were beside me. Mr Cheah and Gloria later went to my hotel to get my handphone to get my sister's contact number. They called my sister to inform about my condition. They also called the Yoke Ling of the Third World Network.

Another crisis was also brewing on the financial side. The hospital wants a deposit of RM60,000. They are willing to treat me and discharge me the next day if they don't get the deposit. Yoke Ling scrambled to get the funds. TWN was willing and able to put up the funds but need time, so Dr Saradha and Datuk Thana (both in Malaysia at that time) helped to get the Malaysian Embassy to act as guarantor for the funds. With that guarantee and subsequent deposit of the funds from TWN, I was able to stay on the hospital for 6 days.

So the drainage operation proceeded. I was given local anasthetic, a tube was poked into the middle of my chest. I hardly felt a thing and can see dark red fluid being drained from my chest, through a tube into a glass canister on the floor. Nearly 1 litre was drained. The doctor said I can breath better now that the fluid is gone. I surely can...

(...next: 7 Dec 2004)

A year ago...

A year ago, I was having breathless and dry cough episode in Buenos Aires. The next day on 6 Dec 2004 I was hospitalised and underwent a drainage of my pericardium. A few days before that, I had a strange deep pain at the back of my left lung.

I was very curious how the pain came about; I didn't exert myself and the pain is unlike anything I felt before; deep throbbing muscle pain. This was followed by dry cough and breathlessness. These were all a mystery to me then; never thought all these are the symptoms of cancer.

And now I am experiencing the same pain again, but the location is different; near the upper spine behind my right lung. A slight pain a few days ago, but now it is throbbing and sharp; not something I can ignore! I am also experienceing slight breathlessness.

Maybe tapering off Iressa was not such a good idea after all...

Well, guess I need to go to NCI for a scan immediately.