Day +5

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) 82 (Normal 130-180)
Platelet 18 (Normal 150-50)
White Blood Count (WBC) 0.2 (Normal 4 - 11)

Now the WBC is extremely slow, the nurse started to inject G-CSF (Granulocyte Colony Simulating Factors) which commonaly referred to by its brand name Neupogen. Its purpose is to stimulates the bone marrow to produce white blood cells to reduce the period of low immunity. This has to be done everyday until the white cell count reach 2.0 on two occasions. It will take about two weeks to reach to this level.

Fortunately, the injection is done subcutaneously, it is administered not far beneath the skin on the upper arms or stomarch. So the needle used is short and small and thus it is not so painful to receive this injection. After the drug is deposited under the skin, it will slowly be absorbed by the body. Whenever the nurse would like to carryout the injection, she always asked me to take a deep breath, then she will poke the needle into my arm or stomarch, after that she will push the piston of the syringe slowly to release the drug into the body. If she pushes the piston too fast, then it would be more painful. Some nurse cares about me very much by saying "If you feel pain, just jeritlah (cry of pain)". But no matter how painful it is I never dare to jerit, because if I jerit suddenly she might get shocked and pushes the piston of the syringe instanly until its end, then pengsanlah saya (fainted me).

Today, they stopped the adminstration of a drug called clexane, a "blood thinner" to me. The rule of thumb is when my platelet drops below 20, then stops this drug. The reason may be that the blood is already thin enough with this low platelet. This drug was administered to me subcutaneously also starting from day -8 until now. So with the Neupogen, the "cucuk" (poking) continue :-(

The X-Ray was taken this morning. Urine and blood sample also taken to check for the Cytomegalovirus (CMV). The earlier administration of the antiviral drug Ganciclovir from day -8 to -1 is to prevent complications due to CMV. The CMV test costs RM25.

Everyday, I wake up at about 7:30am. The nurse then comes "unwired" me. After that they draw blood, check my weight, body temperature, blood pressure, oxygen level and then they tidyup my bed. I will do exercise by cycling in the room.

My room has a bicycle, no matter how fast I cycle, it stays there without moving a single inch. Everyday, I cycled and cycled but at the end it still go no where. What a waste of energy! I believe I am not the only one who do this, there are a lot of people out there paying money to do this in the gynasium or recreation club. Why not just fixed a motor onto the bicycle and let our cycling drives the motor to generate electricity? We can then supply this electricity to Tenaga Nasional. In this way, the gynasium or recreation club has to pay us because we generate electricity for them instead of we paying them. More importantly, I will be also able to earn some money while doing exercise each morning :-)

After the cycling, I will have to take bath, take the breakfast provided by the hospital. Then I will wait for the doctor to come for examination...

I think I need to continue this tomorrow as it is time for me to play guitar...

Good night and have a nice sleep!