It is here again folks. The run to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. Do participate. You do not need to even be there to run. Just participate and donate.
http://www.runforhopesingapore.org/
Come and join run for hope! I will be participating (monetary wise) too! :D
On my birthday 2 years ago, I still had not found that I had CLL. But my birthday wasn't a pleasant one. I was supposed to go for an operation on the 30th of August to remove the lump under my chin so that birthday was spent quietly. I had also just "split up" with the one I was dating, so it was quite a sad, lonely birthday.
I wouldn't say 2006 was a time of sadness. I wouldn't also say 2006 is a unlucky year. For the first half of the year was great. I was never the office girl sort. Not sitting in the air con room letting my sight get short by the four walls. I was in mobile sales. Working 7 days a week, till late into the night. Meet tons of people from all walks of life and work with the greediest of people around, some with no ethics whatsoever. But I also meet nice people. Nice people from creative industry who taught me that even if you earn a lot, your life is only worth this much if you have no humility for others to respect you with. It was a satisfying job. It was that year that I was recognised for my work, went to Bali for a retreat for the top sales person in my company, earn quite a bit of commission and living my life in slight luxury. It was the year I met R, fell deeply in love with her. Had a really great time dating and having fun with all her friends.
Then the 2nd half of the year came. I decided to stop ignoring the signs and go see a doctor for the lump under my chin. Test after test, and an operation. It was at this half of the year, 3 weeks before my birthday that R told me we can only be friends. It was good. Cos she will never be the sort that can accompany me through this rough patch of my life.
Then in december. I got back in contact with my friend of 6 years. She was amazingly nice and caring. She accepted me for who I am and even though I brought with me a tough life ahead. She accepted all that and in 2007, we got together.
SO perhaps 2006 wasn't all too bad. It is a year of ups and downs but sometimes it is such life events that made you think "Life is worth living". I truly think life is beautiful. And I wish I can live as long as I can because there are just so many things to see.
I started my celebration early this year. My friends I know from my current company treated me to Sun and Moon. :)
Then on friday, my colleagues have a standard SOP for birthday and they celebrated my birthday for me with a cake. :)
Friday was such a hectic work day. I worked till 8pm and even thought of coming back to work on my birthday. haha.
Today, I will be celebrating with my geek friends at Da Paolo, then with my Jappy friends at Natsu Matsuri! I am going to be wearing a pink Yukata! XD
Tomorrow, I am going to play basketball with LQ and have lunch after that.
My partner sent flowers to my office on friday and totally embarrased me. >_< Everyone is teasing me. But I am happy to get the flowers. They're beautiful. :) She is also going to Natsu Matsuri with me. I have not plan anything yet for tonight, but I hope we have fun. :)
From the scan, the bone marrow aspirate and my count, my doctor has declared that I am in remission!
WHOOOO HOOOOO!!
My doc also mention that the MO did not extract enough bone marrow from me and ask if there was any difficulty. After telling her what happened, she said that the MO had been receiving complaints from her patients as well. Hmmm. I wonder if he is really that bad or is it that we had all been spoilt by Yvonne that is why we think he suck at bone marrow biopsy.
:/
Back to work tmr!
My birthday is coming this week. OMG 27 years old! I am getting freaked out and nowadays Chinese New Year is like a nightmare to me. I remember the last CNY where my relative whom I only meet once a year keep pressing me on when I am getting married. It annoys the shit out of me. I really think by the age of 30, I have to start going on holidays to avoid CNY. >_<
Why you shouldn't be out on the Saturday after chemo
I think chemo has become such a routine for my family that my mum asked me if I wanna have lunch at home when I woke up this morning. She seems to have disregard the fact that I finished chemo just 2 days ago and perhaps going out will render me vulnerable to random bacteria and viruses.
And certainly, I wouldn't want to be out on the weekend after chemo.
I certainly wouldn't want to be gacking while watching Love Guru in cinema.
Neither would I want my stomach to be churning while having dinner at Tampopo.
And I certainly don't want to suffer from constipation whil there is a queue waiting impatiently outside the bugis junction toilet.
I also wouldn't want people to see the needle mark and bruises on my arm or they might think I am a drug addict.
I don't want my knees to go weak while chasing for the next bus to The Central.
Neither would I want to be breathless while fighting with 100 other sale hungry women in Mango.
So certainly, going out on the Saturday after chemo is a no no. I am eating in today, mum!
Had my bone marrow biopsy done today by a medical officer and the one helping him is a male nurse. Male nurse seems to be very impatient and doing things in a rush. MO seems to be very rush for time and saying that the male nurse is not being efficient enough.
This is how the procedure is supposed to be like...
So 2 very impatient person was assigned to do a very unpleasant bone marrow biopsy for me. Great. Honestly, I would prefer a female nurse because they are really much more considerate and would really hold your hand to console you. The male nurse just hold me down like some kinda prisoner.
First the anesthetic. MO asked me if he should give me 10ml of anesthetic or 15ml. I wish he could make up his mind on this. I jerked when he was about to give me the injection. In no way was I trying to not cooperate, but that is a very normal physical reaction. I was scared and it was ticklish... The MO told me to stop moving, saying I almost made him prick his finger... Anyway, he gave me 10ml of anesthetic and for some reason, he had to describe the whole procedure to me, telling me that he is giving me an injection now, the needle has now reached my bone and he is injecting the anesthetic.
I was freaking out by now. Though this was not my first bone marrow biopsy, I was still really afraid. The last BMB done by Yvonne was pleasantly smooth because she and the nurse was chatting with me throughout, talking about the other MO who was my JC classmate. But this MO... all he talked to me about is how the needle is now at my bone and that because I seems to have a low pain threshold, he is going to give me a SECOND anesthetic injection, which the first already hurt like crap. I wonder why don't he just give me 15ml and get it over with the first time.
Then, he had to go on and tell me that he will start drilling into my bone and I will feel the grinding.... Good job, doc! You successfully freaked your patient out big time! Tears just rolled out of my eyes uncontrollably, not just because of the pain from this dreadful procedure, but also because I am starting to feel sorry for the state I am in. I just kept crying. Non stop. I couldn't control myself because I was in such a state of pain, fear and discomfort that I couldn't help my self pity.
And I cried. From the MO's, "I am now going to do the biopsy, you'll feel the suction," to the, "okay, now the biopsy, just hang in there alright?" I was crying throughout.
It is such a wussy incident, cos I remember the auntie and Carol, my room mate in the ward, both had their BMB done without making a sound. But then again, Carol's BMB was done by Yvonne and the auntie's BMB was done by my friend MO... who was quite a nice chap.
Sigh, I am not trying to complain about the MO. But sometimes I guess Singapore system is such that you have so many patients till you become oblivious to the pain and fear a patient go through.
And after that, I had chemo. It was such a terrible experience because all I wanted to do at that point of time was to go home and rest. And then the nurse came to set my needle port. Failed the first time cos my vein decides to be naughty and wiggle away. T_T
So it is really a painful monday. The next time I have BMB, I will really request my doctor to do it for me. Cos I know she is prone to talking crap while doing BMB, she can make the whole atmosphere more relax for me. ANd no more male nurses for BMB please! D:
don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you.
I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a women. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper.
I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's Grammar. I wanted to be an actress.
I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class, staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't.
In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.
But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.
London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I wanted more than that.
Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life.
In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody.
In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I didn't blame her.
But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch. Oh Ruth. . . .
They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak.
The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody.
I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.
An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.
I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you.
Valerie
This is the best film I had ever watched. And this part, is my favourite. During the petition of 377a, when there are tons of vehement insults and derogatory terms about gays flying around, especially from religious people, I wonder, "Why are they so frightened of us?"
We are not ashamed. As long as we have that inch, we are alive. For that inch, we fight. No one can take it away from us.
Another 4 days to cycle 4. How time flies. But then again, that also means that I am 2/3 to finishing this dreadful process.
This cycle will be pretty challenging, because I am going to have my bone marrow biopsy and chemo on the same day. Double whammy.... literally.
But life has been kind to me all this while. I do not have adverse side effects. My hair is till in tact. So I guess the pain is just a little price to pay to get rid of the nodes and the little CLL all in my body.
To be honest, I do not think of the future much anymore. I do not think about wanting to have a house, wanting to have what kind of family in the future. I guess I stopped hoping and stopped expecting of such sort. Life is so short, so transient. I think all I want to do is enjoy the moment. I know I will never going to have a normal family life like the social norm. I go against the social norm. And now, all i can do is take one step at a time, with my partner, hand in hand, and be happy for every day that I am alive.
PS: The red tiny dot on my hand is the mark of the needle stuck into my flesh for CT scan on sat. It hurts like hell for it to be inserted and it hurts like hell when the contrast was pumped in. SGH's CT scan is horrible. I dun even feel so horrible when I had that done in TTSH
I was 25 when I was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia on 15th September, 2006. At first I felt lost, I was afraid. But with a lot of support from my family, friends and an online CLL support group, I grew stronger. I am now a CLL warrior, and a WonderWoman fighting against cancer. This is my story.
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia is a blood cancer found more commonly among Westerner males, above the age of 50. I am a Chinese female, and was diagnosed at 25. What are the chances, really? Since then I start buying more toto. Because if I can get such a rare cancer which occurs only 1 in a million chance to someone like me, then winning 1 million dollars doesn't seem like such an impossible dream right? ^_^
Yes, I am positively optimistic. ^_~
