Day +8 13-July-06(Thurs)

My Blood Count Today:
Red Blood Count (RBC) 83 (Normal 130-180)
Platelet 15 (Normal 150-50)
White Blood Count (WBC) =0 (Normal 4 - 11)

So the WBC dropped to zero.

I was given transfusion of another one pack of single donor platelet and 2 packs of red blood cells.

I was feeling better but still tired most of the day.

The notebook computer was sent for repair. I got a replacement from the office, but without WIFI, so I am unable to go online to update anything.

In the afternoon, two BMT (Bone Mrrow Transplant) nurses came to me and started to examine my left arm. They keep on praising my arm and said "cantiknya! cantiknya! (beautiful!, beautiful!)". Nobody would say that my arms which are full of "tahi lalat (moles)" beautiful. While I was puzzling what did that mean, I was having a big shock to see them pulling out a needle from a tray and poked into my arm to draw blood. I only realized that they mean I have beatiful veins on the arm. A vein is beautiful when it is big and slightly raised from the surface of the arm. It is very easy to draw blood from this type of vein, that is why the nurse called it beautiful.

My beautiful vein on the arm is attributed to my poor childhood life in the kampung (village). My brothers and sisters used to do heavy work in the plantation such as tapping rubber trees, planting and harvesting pepper and oranges. After the hand go through heavy exercises, the veins became big and raised slightly which makes it very easy to locate. So if you would like to have beautiful veins on your arms, please start to let them do heavy work. If you really don't have heavy work to do, just come to my house to help carry my babies, then your veins will sure look beautiful :-)