D-Day - The Battle Begins

Branula in my wrist

      1st Feb was the appointed day........9:00am sharp at the DSH. It kind of reminded me of my first day at school or college. Accompanied by my daughter, who had just returned from London for a short visit, I reported at the Oncology Suite. I was introduced to the staff there who asked me to make my self comfortable either on the sofa chair or the bed if I preferred......Being a macho man, I would rather take the chemo sitting rather than lying. Well I did not know.the difference anyway.

So the process started, the nurse spraying some very cold stuff on my wrist to numb the area and then placing the branula in place.Was it painful..mmmm...not really. This will be a process which I will have to go thro each chemo session, and that is 7 sessions planed over 7 weeks. Its a slow process and killing time is the key to managing this process. I must have read the Start newspaper from front to back and front several times. Wi-fi is freely available so I logged on to the internet and checked my e-mail, company mail and Google news, Malaysiakini and where ever my interest took me to. The main medication administered was Cisplatin, and this is pretty much the Industry Standard (I had checked this out on the Internet the week before.) .

Main Ingredient for the Chemo

The whole process took almost 4 hours.I was feeling pretty good with no visible side effects of the chemo. Maybe a small swelling at the wrist, but nothing serious. Phew! The first part was over and I made it. During the Chemo, I got introduced to a gentleman named Ewe Jin who sat by me for a while and related his experience with nasal cancer and his experience going thro it. Oh what a story ! Read it here Face to face with cancer. I downloaded the book and read it in sitting.







I was sent downstairs to the Radiation Room for my first dose of radiation. This was interesting as I had to wear a mask that was fitted over my face. I looked more like Spider man. The process involved is to position my head in a fixed location and then let the computer guided machine shoot its rays at its pre determined spot. Actually I did not feel a thing. I could hear the machine making some kind of noise and I could see the variable  aperture of the machine at work. This machine is called IMRT and check it out here.

With  the face mask attached

     By 2:30 pm it was all over and I felt fine, in great spirits and happy that I had started the treatment and I managed it very well,......well beyond my expectations.

Using laser to align

The process begins