Day +18

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) 92(Normal 130-180)
Platelet 11(Normal 150-50)
White Blood Count (WBC) =1.1 (Normal 4 - 11)

I am fine today. The white blood count increased by 0.3 to 1.1, which is considered to be a good increase. However, the platelet is still dropping even with transfusion yesterday. The doctor said the Platelet recovery will normally lack behind 5 to 10 days compared to white blood cells.
Given this low Platelet count 11, I receive another transfusion of single donor platelet today.

The cough get a little bit more severe today. So I started to take cough syrup. It makes me feel sleepy. The mucositis condition improved a lot.

Back to the daily examination check lists I mentioned yesterday, after asking the question:"How are you today?", the next step is to examine the mouth and throat with the help of a torch light. As a "family doctor", instead of looking for mucositis, I should check whether their mouth is clean- make sure that they brush the teeth, no left-over sweets in the mouth and the teeth are sparkling white.

The next examination is to see if the the lung is clear. I will put the stethoscope on the chest and back (lung area of the body) and then ask the family member to breath in and out to see if the lung is clear or not. Frankly speaking, when doctor said:"Good, the lung is clear", I don't know what does the word "clear" means because I never has a chance to listen to my lung. The word "clear" can means the lung generates some sound which is very "clear" - something like 24-bit mastered Dolby Surround AC-3 Digital classical music. It can means the lung is "clear" of some sound - for example those noisy heavy metal music. It can also means the lung is "clear" of all sound - totally quiet. I need to do further research on this.

The next examination is to listen to the heart using the stethoscope to see whether "heart murmur" can be heard. But I also don't know what does this "heart murmur" actually sounds like. One afternoon during my 4th cycle of chemotherapy in April this year, four doctors suddendly appeared at my bed side and asked permission to examine me. One of the thing that they wanted to find out was whether I had this "heart murmur". So the four doctors take turn to examine me. This means that I had to go through the same examinations for four times. At the end I only realized that this examination formed part of their exam - they probably had to write report to conclude what they heard. Even doctors have to be tested on how to listen to this "heart murmur" correctly, I guess it is not easy for me to find one.

But nevertheless, I find the word "murmur" in Longman dictionary as "to compain to friends and people you work with, but not officially". With this, the "heart murmur" can be interpreted as "complain from within the heart". So with this examination I should be able to hear if their heart murmurs against me. If so, I think I would also be able to hear through the stethoscope the complains and dissastifactions in detail so that necessary actions can be taken :-) Anyway, this is just a joke, if you want to find out what "heart murmur" actually is, you can read something from here.

The next exmination is to press at various position of the abdominal area to see if there is any pain. If there is no pain, then everything should be fine. If there is pain? I also don't know what to do because I pass this examinations everytime doctor examine me. I think the best solution is to send them to see a medical doctor if they failed this exmination.

The next one is to exmine the eyes. This one is a little bit tricky for children. I have to ask them to look at left first, then right, then up and then down or east-west-north-south, while keeping their head stationary. If the children having difficulty to do this, then I have to ask my wife to hold their head so that I can examine their eyes with full concentration. If the eyes are red, I have to investigate why they are crying.

Lastly, I have to examine their skin. The children are so active that it is very easy for them to injure themselves. If I found any bruises on their body, just cover them with handiplast. A pretty easy task to do :-)

I believe with this exmination, the family members would be more healthy, both physcially and psychologically.

See you tomorrow:-)