Day +111

I am fine today. I would like to continue sharing my third chemotherapy experience at UH.

My chemotherapy was completed in the morning of 24 February 2005 (Day 5) and as usual, I had to wait for the blood count to drop and then pick up again before I could be discharged. Since it is almost impossible to avoid fever when the white blood count dropped to a level almost equal to zero, we always tell people that we were “waiting for fever” after completing the chemo drug.

A CT scan was performed on Day 8 to check the condition of my chest and abdominal region. This scan was necessary to check whether my lung and other organs such as kidney and intestines were infected with fungus. I was asked to fast after the breakfast. The doctor set up an intravenous line on my hand for the injection of a solution into my vein. According to the nurse, the PICC could not be used for this purpose because the solution was too thick to be administered through the PICC and it might block the PICC line. Just before the scan was carried out, the nurse asked me to drink a glass of yellowish solution. I was happy because I thought the nurse “belanja” (treats) me with nice orange juice, but I was nearly vomit on the spot as the drink tasted like iodine solution. :-( In the end, they asked me to lie down on a table-like structure, hold my breath, and then let a big noisy rotating cylinder run across it. When I returned to the ward, I vomited and experienced stomach upset. Of course, I had no appetite to eat any food on that day.

It was very fortunate that the CT scan result showed no sign of fungus infection; or else I might need to be treated with Amphoteracin B for three months.

The doctor also started to give Neupogen (growth factor) injection to me on Day 8, hoping that it would stimulate my bone marrow to produce white blood cells faster.

See you next post :-)