We brought our father to Asia Centre For Liver Diseases & Transplantation located at Gleneagles Hospital Singapore for another round of diagnosis last weekend. It has finally decided that, it’s best he does a surgery, for these reasons :

1) His tumor is only on the left lobe, other part of his liver and organs are clean

2) His liver function is normal based on the blood test, meaning the other part of his liver is in good condition

3) His tumor is too big to be removed or killed by chemo, if he were to go for chemo, he’ll have to do many rounds to reduce the size.

His surgery will be tomorrow. Hope all will be well.

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I’m so touched by a few, who’d shown me so much compasion since they knew about my father’s condition.

Dinah, who helped me made the appointment with her BIL during Chinese New Year.

C, my neighbour, dropped by with books; one by Dr Wu, who has fought and won his cancer battle through a change of diet and lifestyle; and another book on negative ion and its benefit.
C also offered to take care of the girls and have them stay with her, if I needed to be away.

K, also my neighbour, in the midst of moving, dropped by with recipe books for cancer patients which she has to dig in her packed boxes.

SK, who’ll be giving me a place to stay, and her kitchen to use next week when my dad is in the hospital.

I’m most touched by Lisa, who is herself battling cancer with spunk. When she knew about my father, she started sending me all the long sms-es with information on things that I can do, or get for my father to help him, based on her own experience and what she knows. She said, “Fighting cancer is like a crash course.. getting a new degree.. in the shortest time.”

I thank her for giving me the cheat sheet.

And what touched me most was her dropping by my house yesterday with these for my dad.
Leaflet on Dr Rath’s Program.
3 bottles of Mangosteen juice (high in anti oxidant)
A box of Maharishi Amrit Kalash Mak 4 & 5 (also high on anti oxidant)

I didn’t get to see her, because I was out with the girls.

She also gave 2 Chinese style bags for the girls.

The girls were so happy to see those, and immediately started using them. See what they used them for?

*bow humbly* Thank you Lisa, C, K, SK, Dinah. I’m so touched by your compasion, your help and your friendship.

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Girls’ prayers for my dad now became something like this,
Zara : “Hope Ah Kong’s operation will not be painful. And he will get better after that, then he can play with me.”
Zaria : “Hope the doctor wash the knife clean clean clean for Ah Kong’s operation. And after that Ah Kong will not have diarhea any more.”

It’s more than 10 days since I last updated. I’d been busy with work (3 Shanghainese colleagues off for the New Year, so I have to back them up) and due to some family matters, I’d been feeling a big sluggish (in blogging). Now it’s time to be back.

So what happened during the Chinese New Year (CNY)? Photos will be coming, but here is to share something that affected me lots during these last 10 days.

7th Feb, my dad got his yearly check up results, and my sis (whom my father lives with) sms-ed us and informed us that his liver readings were not very good.

8th Feb, another sms-ed came in to inform us that my father has a very bad bout of diarhea and is in the midst of being sent to the doctor’s. I went to the doctor’s to see him, he was on drips, very tired and pale looking, just spoke to me a little and went back to sleep. My BIL updated me on what happened, i.e.

My dad had roti canai for breakfast (why so soon after he has his blood test results and supposed to be watching his diet, I don’t know), and drank up the whole bowl of fish curry. He then drove from Briekfields to PJ State to do his banking, and right after he parked his car, he had the urge to purge. He wanted to go to the nearest toilet, but when he got out of the car, he just felt so dizzy, he slumped on the the floor. A couple of attempts later, he gave up. Got back to the car when he felt he was strong enough, and drove to Pudu (He was being stupid! He could have fainted half way driving and had an accident), and on his journey, purged in the car. Upon arriving at Pudu, he just spent the rest of his time in the office toilet. His colleague then called my sis, and soon after my BIL came by to pick him up from the office and sent him to the doctor’s, where he was found to be very dehydrated, and his blood pressure very low.

When my dad’s blood pressure was back to normal, he complained the right side of his upper abdomen being very painful. So painful he was cringing when he got up, or when he lied down, he only felt comfortable being at a certain position. The doctor claimed it might be caused by the gas in the stomach.

He was discharged the same day. A couple of days after, he still complained about his upper abdomen being very painful. On 12th Feb (the last day of work before CNY for most people), my BIL brought him to do an ultrasound, and that’s when the shocking news came. The radiologist found a 14cm growth on his liver! No specialists were available to diagnose what this meant, so everybody’s mood was a bit gloomy over the CNY period.

I was especially worried when I saw him on 1st day of CNY with his very greenish, yellowish complexion. But luckily, 2nd day onwards, some pink returned to his face.

On 17th Feb when the doctors are back to work, he saw his first liver specialist, Dr. Ryan Ponnudurai. A CT scan was done, and the growth is actually around 14~16cm on the left lobe of his liver.

On 18th Feb, he went to see a 2nd specialist, Dr. MV Kudva, also a liver spealist. The options given were more or less the same.

1. Surgery to remove the growth, but because of his age and the size of the growth, it’s not recommended.
2. Chemotheraphy, Dr. MV Kudva said the best chemo option is to do TACE – Transarterial chemoembolization, a procedure in which the blood supply to a tumor is blocked (embolized) and chemotherapy is administered directly into the tumor.
His other chemo option is to take chemo drug in pill form.
3. Do nothing and hope for the best.

My dad, being the funny sort, asked me, “What if I go for option 2, and my hair fall off?” As though that’s the most important thing to him!

He’s kind of decided on option 2, now we are getting another round of check on all his tests and scans by the radiologist, Dr. Asokan R. Nair, and to see if he can have TACE done on him. It’s likely that he’ll be doing it in UMMC, because Dr. Asokan will be recommending another radiologist (a professor) from UM to do it for him.

He’s still driving himself around, going to work, to church etc. He stops eating out, and on a control diet now, while waiting.

For someone who’s rather healthy all this while, this is all hard news for him and us. I’d lost a couple of days sleep, worried about him, worried about myself (I was told I had fatty liver the last round I did my check up).

The girls, not knowing what really is happening, is praying in the night, Zaria will say something like this, “Jesus, please help my Ah Kong to be better, so that he don’t have diarhea and go on drips.”