diet

last week, i visited the website of Singapore Cancer Society. was trying to look out for some goodies or priviledges for myself. u know? maybe i get to eat a free lunch or get a goodie bag for joining them as an exclusive member. save ur effort, unless u think u hv something for them to steal.

this is a piece of ad i saw on the website:

so based on the above information, my meals for the month of june and july would be $144 a month. still cheaper than a mcdonald meal daily. so it "payoff" to be a cancer patient if u r a mc lover. hahaha...

but u notice something on the ad? nasopharynx cancer. why not lung cancer? why not breast cancer? why not colorectal cancer? becos nasophraynx cancer patients good to bully? should kick their ass harder?

many of u did not know what i'd gone thru in NDC (national dental centre). becos initially i was schedule to do radio immediately, i hv only 4 working days to do dental clearance. reason is becos once radio started, my gum and teeth will get weaker, then with all the sores and ulcers, i would rather die if i caught into a dental problem during the treatment.

so the dentist made a very brave decision after discussing with another 2 senior dentists, they decided to extract all the 4 wisdom tooth in a day. he was feeling very sorry for me, but the order from NCC clearly stated that dental need to be cleared in 4 working days (from here u can oso see that among MOs, dentist is the smallest fry).

so the next day, i went back to NDC for a supposingly 1 hour day surgery. the dentist who made the brave decision wasn't the surgeon. he himself said that he's not qualified enough to perform such a "major surgery". my surgeon was a very matured and cool indian dentist. still, i guess he'll remember me forever. i was patially anesthesic and blindfolded. but i can feel that many heavy duty equipment were applied to me (surprisingly my teeth was super-duper strong). the entire dentist couch were shaking, bumping, i could hear the dentist panting. the battle lasted 2.5 hours.

a month later when i went back for dental checkup, i ran into this dentist at the entrance of NDC. he greeted me. i apologised to him cos i was blindfolded throughout, so i had no impression of him.

after the surgery, no painkillers for me, no medication except antibiotics cos i was supposed to go for my radiotherapy in few days time. i had problem talking for the next 2 days, problem eating for the next 5 days. my mouth was swollen and bleeding for 1 week.

so it served as a prelude to my radio/chemo treatment: liquid diet. i live on porridge, con-gee, cereal and oats for that 6 days. sad to say, i never enjoy these food. in fact i hate cereal and oats, dislike porridge and con-gee. i dun need to tell u how lousy i felt for that 6 days. and i dun need to explain why i'm currently eating as if tomorrow never comes. 朋友，吃饱了好上路.

we were talking about 6 days. now what's lying ahead of me is 6 weeks. it's a 550% duration and infinite multiples of torture since i may not even eat the above food, and i may throw out after eating the above food.

robert writes, "Sometimes after my fourth session, the effects of the chemo start accumulating and begin battering me all at the same time... First, the mouth sores. No matter how much ice I chew, the sores will not go away. And forget about keeping anything down. I can't get anything in. For three weeks straight I live on orange lozenges, Jell-O, water, and liquid Lidocaine to numb my mouth. Prisoners at Guantanamo have a better meal plan. Once the sores start to clear up and I return to solid food, I immediately throw everything up... All of this adds up to extreme weakness. I no longer walk..."

robert was suffering from lymphoma, not nasopharyngeal. he received only chemo, no radio. we hv one thing in common, we r both ordinary men.