Oh Yum!

It's great to celebrate family events. Good food, great company ... and did I say good food? :-) Last night, we had a small dinner with lots of food to celebrate Fiona's mum's birthday. A scrumptious chinese meal at the new Overseas Restaurant at Jaya One. Pork ribs, "Ham Yee Fa Lam Po", and much much more were on the menu. Mmmm.

Fiona did "a Fiona" and we ended up with food enough for twice as many people as were present (as usual)! To her credit, no one complained as we all tucked in. And we finished it up with a lovely cheesecake. Happy Birthday, Mum!

Natural Recovery

Following her pleurodesis procedure last friday, Fiona has been recovering. However, we had to make a trip to the local GP as we suspected that she might also have an Upper Respiratory Tract infection, evidenced by the ongoing coughing and low grade fever. The GP confirmed our suspicions and gave her, among other things, antibiotics to fight the infection and voltaren tablets to "open up" her lungs.

Since then, much of the pain from the procedure has subsided but there is still some. And she is still feeling some breathlessness. We suspect that this is because of the short, shallow breaths she takes to avoid pain. Please pray for these symptoms to subside, and for complete healing from the procedure.

Moving forward, we are restarting her juicing regime. Apart from the usual apples and carrots, we are also looking into lemongrass and soursop. Even as we take this break from chemo drugs, we believe that the natural goodness that God has created can help her build up her own body's immunity to fight the disease. Please pray with us over these few months as we move in this direction.

p/s We are also still looking for a good recommendation for an oncologist to speak to in Singapore. Does anyone have a suggestion?

A Finished Race

We said goodbye to a dear uncle today, the youngest brother of Jeff's dad. Jacob Tham Mook Chee, you will be missed, but we know that you are with our Lord now. You have run your race, and you have fought the good fight and now you wear the crown of glory that has been prepared for you. We grieve, but our joy is that we too have a risen hope in Christ, and so we will see you again in but a little while. Dear friends, please pray for the young family that he leaves behind, that they will be comforted and know God's grace and provision even at this time.

A Long Day, but All Done

After a lot of waiting, from 2pm thru 6pm, the radiologist finally freed up to do the pleurodesis procedure for Fiona. Because it was already at the end of the day, they put her at UMMC's observation ward at the Trauma Centre, where there would be someone to observe her after the procedure.

The procedure involved injecting Tetracycline into the pleural space (i.e. the cavity between the chest walls and the lung lining) and leaving it there for 2 hours. The idea was to create sufficient irritation that the lungs would "stick" to the chest wall, thereby sealing off the space and not allowing future accumulation of fluid. They warned us that this was going to hurt a lot, and we were quite concerned, given Fiona's high sensitivity to pain, even with the morphine they would give her. From past experience, we knew that morphine did little for Fiona other than to take the edge of any pain.

It was quite a miracle. During the injecting and the 2 hours of waiting, Fiona felt absolutely no pain, nothing, zip. She even went as far as to question if they had done the procedure at all. We were filled with a sense of wonder. Someone had obviously been praying hard, and our God had answered. We were very thankful.

At the end of the 2 hours, they drained the fluid. Again, no discomfort. Then they took out the tube that had been inserted into Fiona's lung and had been there for the past 2 days, a very uncomfortable and painful thing. She looked quite well at the end of the procedure as they cleaned her up applied a gauze dressing or two.

We finally got home at about 10pm. Tired, but very thankful that it was all over. And still with a sense that God had been at work today, watching over Fiona, and with a sovereign hand to play in the events. Thank you, almighty and gracious God.

Better Morning

Hi all, thanks for your prayers. Fiona is feeling better this morning. Still has a tendency to cough a bit much, to the point where it can be a challenge to keep food down. Please pray for that to subside. The gastric is better today and the back soreness is more bearable.

We're heading to UMMC in a while to see if we can get the tubes out and the pleurodesis done. It will be an uncomfortable procedure, so please cover Fiona in prayer. God bless.

Double Ouch

There was apparently a kink in the tube under the dressing. We discovered this in the Chest X-Ray Fiona was asked to do upon arriving at UMMC. Well .. we didn't see the kink in the X-Ray. We just saw a lot of remaining water in the lung.

After waiting from 2pm to almost 4pm, they finally ushered Fiona into the room. After removing the kink, they extracted another 1.1 litres of fluid, then reapplied the dressing. Poor Fiona was badly in pain.

The pain wasn't just from the procedure. She also gave herself a bad case of gastritis from taking her Tramidol painkillers without antacids. So back pain plus stomach cramps. So we're home again, and she's taken all the pills to stop the two sources of pain.

Back to the hospital tomorrow, 2pm, for what we planned to do today i.e. remove the tube, then pleurodesis. The latter will be very uncomfortable. Would appreciate your prayers for Fiona.

A Painful Tube

Following our discussion with Dr Marniza, we were ushered to Radiology where Prof BJ was to do an ultrasound-guided procedure to extract the fluid from Fiona's right lung.  This is meant to provide relief from symptoms of breathlessness and coughing.

Ouch. Despite 2 rounds of local anaesthesia and a Pethadine (sp?) shot, Fiona still felt the pain as they inserted a tube into her back and into her lung, and attached a bag to collect the fluid.  Some 1.2 litres was drained.

She has come home now, with the bag by her side, in the hope that the remainder of the liquid in her lung will drain completely overnight.  The plan is then to perform a procedure tomorrow called "Pleurodesis" which means to stop the liquid from forming and accumulating.  We will go back to the hospital tomorrow at 2pm.

Please pray for a good rest for Fiona and no pain.

Taking a Break

Hi friends and praying pals.  Today was supposed to be a day of discussion with the doctor, to confirm if there was disease progression, and then to decide what to do next.

So the Oncologist, Dr Marniza Saad, did indeed confirm, in her professional opinion, that there was disease progression, and decided to therefore take Fiona off the study drug (Avastin) programme as it was apparently doing no further good.  We were then left to decide whether or not to start a new round of chemo.  Chemo is tough.  It kills the good cells and the bad.  Sort of a "scorched earth" approach.  So we've decided to take a break.  No chemo for the next 6 months.

During this duration, Fiona will return to a healthy regime of juicing, anti-oxidants, exercise, and de-tox, to allow her body to rest while rebuilding her immune system. We will also continue regular visits to the Oncologist, and have scheduled CT scans once every 3 months, to keep an eye on things. If there are signs of further progression, then we will revisit our decision.

On top of this, we are also considering seeking a second opinion, probably from Singapore. Does anyone know of a good Oncologist there?

Catching Up

Hi dear friends. We know you are keen to know what has been happening with Fiona, and there has been quite a bit happening indeed.

To bring you all up to speed, Fiona recently (April 2008) completed her 3rd round of Chemo (Xeloda + Avastin study drug). At that point, she was relatively symptomless, with no pain but with some breathlessness due to the liquid in her right lung. The plan then was to just continue with the study drug and to keep monitoring her condition. Day-to-day, Fiona was quite well and able to move around, and even working on a part-time/freelance basis for a couple of days a week.

However, about a week ago, she detected a new lump in her left breast. The question is: Is this new? Or just not previously detected?  The doctors need to revisit earlier scans to determine this.  The implications are real.  If this is new, then existing treatments must not be working and will be stopped.  A new round of chemo will likely ollow.  If this is not new, then existing treatments can continue for now.

We will be seeing the doctor again next Wednesday.  Your prayers would be most coveted.

Reboot

Hi all, dear friends, family members, fellow journeymen (and women) through this existence! As a family, we used to have a little blog on a private web domain. Was fun for a while, but we've decided to move to Blogspot. Saves us maintaining a website just for a blog, and these guys (who belong to Google, in case you did not know!) do a wonderful job for free. So here we have moved and shall remain for the foreseeable future. We will be moving our old posts here eventually, perhaps in some archive space, in case you want some sense of history. So cheerio, and see you soon!