Day +199

I am fine today.

With so many negative comments received about UH, why I still do transplant in UH?

In fact, I initially planned to complete all remaining chemotherapies in UH then do bone marrow transplant in Subang Jaya Medical Centre (SJMC), the only private hospital that offers bone marrow transplant services in Malaysia. I was told the estimated cost of transplant in SJMC is about RM150,000. This is beyond the coverage of my medical insurance.

On the other hand, the government will bear all my transplant charges if I carried out transplant in UH. This is because my wife is a government servant and in Malaysia, all family members of a government servant enjoy medical coverage provided the treatment is done in government or semi-government hospital.

However, to me, the primary concern of choosing a transplant centre is its mortality rate, not the cost. Life is better than money, isn’t it? I was informed by my first haematologist in Kuching that the mortality rate of an allogeneic transplant is about 20% to 25%. This is consistent with what I read later. If the mortality rate of a transplant in UH falls within this range, there should be no reason not to do transplant here, considering the cost.

In order to find out this, my eldest sister accompanied me to see Dr. Alan Teh in SJMC. Many questions asked and answered. The most important one to me was the mortality rate of a transplant in UH and his answer fell within the above range. Since he is the visiting consultant to UH, I trust his answer and decided to do transplant in UH without further hesitation.

I was very ‘happy’ after the decision because one of the side effects of the transplant would be significantly reduced now. This side effect is called poverty. In fact, the insurance company ‘paid me to stay in hospital’. In the end, I earned money, the money that no one ever wished or dared to earn :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +71

I am fine today. Just continue my story...

After discharged from NMSC on 20, December 2005, I stayed in my sister's house in Kuching for a few days. My family and I flied back to Kuala Lumpur on the Christmas day. We missed all the Christmas activities.

My family members wished that I did not have to do bone marrow transplant. They hoped if I repeat the cytogenetic analysis, the result would be more favorable. My fourth sister brought me to see a hematologist in SJMC in order to get his opinion about my future treatment. The hematologist said that my case was very straight forward; the treatment had to be 4 cycles of chemotherapy with bone marrow transplant. From there onward, I was determined to go for bone marrow transplant even though I knew "it is a high risk business."

Apart from moral support in term of encouragements and prayers, I also received a lot of financial help from family members, relatives, church members, friends and my wife’s colleagues. Some of them were so generous in giving money until I felt a little bit embarrassed to receive it. As I had to temporary stop working and my wife also applied leave for a year, our income is greatly reduced. My church and my wife's school raised some fund for us and the company that I worked is also supporting me. My wife's school even planned to raise fund for us second time to payoff more than RM10,000 overdrawn salary due to my wife's unpaid and half-paid leave, but we turned it down because we believed we could settle it with our saving.

I considered myself very fortunate because so many people care about me and my family.

See you next post :-)

Day +67

I am fine today. I would like to talk gain...

Before the discharge, I needed to make a decision of where I should further my treatment. I could continue my chemotherapy in NMSC in Kuching or Subang Jaya Medical Centre (SJMC) in Selangor, but the medical fee could easily exceed the entitlement of my medical insurance. The other choice was to go to Kuala Lumpur General Hospital (KLH), but I expected there are too many patients there which might result in long waiting list. Finally, I decided to further my chemotherapy in UH, which is a semi-government body. As my wife is a government teacher, I entitled for free treatment in government hospital. So I would not be expected to spend too much in UH.

The next decision was to choose my transplant centre. I had three choices: Singapore, KLH, SJMC and UH. The cost of doing a sibling allogeneic transplant in Singapore and SJMC was estimated to be RM200,000 and RM150,000 respectively. Again, this is beyond my insurance coverage. However, I planned to do my transplant in SJMC initially, but changed my mind later to do it in UH after consulting with a hematologist in SJMC.

See you next post :-)

Day +66

In NMSC, my care taker cooked for me oat meal mixed with vegetable and fish almost everyday. They boiled everything together using a rice cooker in the room. Sometimes they also brought food from my eldest sister house which tasted much better than the oat meal.

My eldest sister also cut my hair, but not long after that my hair started to drop. So she helped me again to pull off most of my hair, not violently, but gently without causing pain. If we didn't do it this way, my hair would drop everywhere in the room :-(

A senior uncle from my eldest sister's church came to visit, encourage and pray for me many times. He and his wife were having cancers earlier and went through chemotherapy, but they were healthy now. His also prayed for me through the telephone when they could not visit me. In his prayer, he always said, "With the treatment given by doctor, coupled with the grace of God, you shall be healed."

I experienced one occasion of chill and fever that lasted for a few hours. Apart from this, I also developed rashes over my body because I was allergic to some chemo drug.
The doctor informed me my cytogenetic analysis result on the 19, November. This analysis studies the chromosome abnormalities of a patient. It is important in determining the prognosis (long term survival rate) of a cancer patient. Based on the type of chromosome abnormality, the patient can be categorized into low risk, medium risk and high risk group. It is not necessary for a patient who is in the low risk group to go for bone marrow transplant, unless he/she experiences a relapse. We all hoped that I will be in this group. But the result showed that I am in the high risk group. So I was advised to go for transplant.

I was discharged from NMSC on the 20, December 2005, hospitalized for 23 days and 22 nights. The medical fee was very high. Fortunately, I purchased medical insurance which allowed me to claim most of the fee.

See you next post :-)