Discharge!

My Dad had his CT scan earlier today and now he was allowed discharged. I was rather tied up with the ward duty and was only able to sort out the bills and stuff right at the end. He was really bored by now and he was really glad that he can go home. Back to his usual magazines and TV. On my end, I was giventhe duty of checking his blood until his Warfarin dosing stabilise.

Irfan and Idlan were in good spirit at home. There will be a small matter of Sports Day coming up this Saturday. He did not tell me which event he will be participating. Managed to free my Saturday morning to be present.

Smart Tag!

It was one of those days that did not start off well. On the way to work, while queuing on the Smart Tag lane, a Proton cut off in front of me. I don't mind that. The problem was, it then had issues with the toll plank. It came up with a notice 'Hubungi Plaza' and we ended up in a long queue. I felt like smashing the windows in. The car behind me was really giving him grief. It took about 30 seconds for the attended to come across and another 30 to get him going. The honk was funny!

Ward round and visit by a trial sponsor ensued, followed by tutorials, lunch and a clinical sessions with the MMed candidates. The session went well although we can tell that the candidates was not well prepared. After all, the exam was so that the theory will be conducted first in around 4 weeks followed by a month gap for which those that passed the written will attend the clinical exams. The clinicals will be conducted in UM. That was enough to send shivers down their spine as traditionally, it was harder to pass in UM. That was just rumours though. Ne'er clinically proven!

We also had some bad news today in which the husband of the chief clerk at the Medical Department passed away today. Apparently it was not expected even though he had heart troubles and was on dialysis, he was pretty OK. Didn't really know what happened. Will catch up on the gossips tomorrow I am sure. In the meantime, the Revision Course was really kicking. The sessions so far have been going OK. The shame was I can't organise a mock exam for this lot since they were far to many of them. It was just impossible. If I were to go ahead, I'd probably only finished by 9 pm. And we don't want that!

Quick drive to Suria

Currently waiting for my sandwich at Suria KLCC. Enjoying some mango smoothies while at it. I wanted to browse for some photo magazine at Kinokuniya but none caught my eyes this time. Bought a couple of mags, then it was time to head home.

Will have to do a few slides for the revision course tomorrow. I looked at the list last week and found out that there would be around 45 candidates sitting for the coming exam. Looked like I have to cancel the mock exam and switch it to clinical sessions instead. It would be a nightmare organising sessions for this lot due to the sheer number. Frankly I don't think I can cope at all.

Have to put my thinking cap on for tomorrow and hoping for the best.

Lunch at Yo! Sushi

What should I order?We went out to Pavilion earlier today since I thought we could all do with some retail therapy after what has been going on in the last week. I firstly went to visit Dad and did a quick visit to my transplant ward before having a nice 'daun pisang' lunch with Anita. It was not often that the two of us were left alone. Irfan called while we were eating and told us he wanted to have some fried rice at Yo! Sushi. Why not eh?

I can explain the miso and the MSG, but this drink? I wonder why the boys like it.True to form both Idlan and Irfan finished their portion of fried rice. Idlan wanted me to feed him using chopsticks. That took twice the time it should but he wanted to try. Looking at Idlan, Irfan also wanted likewise. The important thing was their appetite was good. We had a lot to be thankful for.

Both of them finished up an order each .... well done!By the fountain laterThen come the time for shopping. Puan Anita was looking for some dress as there were a couple of reunion events coming up soon. Irfan wanted a new light saber. He has already got the red (Darth Maul), blue (Obiwan Kenobe) and orange (some random Jedi character). Now he wanted Yoda's green. Puan Anita duly obliged. Spoilt!

Hopefully Dad will be home in the next couple of days. That will bring things back to normalcy somewhat. We have moved most of out stuffs back to Dad's place. I have yet however to move my iMac. I'll probably do it next weekend. In the meantime, I had to be content with my MacBook Pro.

Talk in Ampang

Yesterday afternoon, I was invited by my colleague from Hospital Ampang to participate in a public forum on Multiple Myeloma. Apart from myself, they invites a Nurse from Dana-Faber Cancer Center in Boston to address the questions from the partiipant about living and coping with the disease.

The session started out with a short talk on myeloma by yours truly all in Malay. We then took question from the public ad that went on for a good half hour. At the end we discussed about the need for a patient support group that were pretty common abroad. It looked that there were some interested party in there. Hopefully something will come out of it similar to the MaxFamily for CML.

We highlighted that part of the reason why cancer parietal support group were not very strongly supported here was the fact there there was stigma attached to the diagnosis of cancer in out society. Patient once labelled as having cancer often felt shame and wondered if it was punishment from God. Worst so, this view was reinforced by the people around them. These people ended up retreating into a shell and suffered by themselves.

I was pretty certain that part of challenge would be to chance the patients perception of their disease, overcome the stigma, empower them and make them confident. Only after the inner battle were address, they can start changing te public perception of their predicament. The problem also held true for other non-cancer conditions such as lupus and multiple sclerosis. Even diabetes support groups locally struggled atthe beginning. I guess we Malaysian still have perception that having any disease was a direct consequence of punishment from God, be it cancer, lupus, diabetes. Even my Mum-in-law once said that when she was bringing up her children re my wife, they never had fever until they attended school. Since out children were both asthmatics, bearing in mind that Irfan was just discharged from hospital, the infections that they regularly picked up were due to us not looking after them properly, and even due to us 'tak buat baik' to other people. I realised that those statements should be taken with a pinch of salt, the point I was making was generally we Malaysian were wary to people having illness and all illness must always have a reason behind them.

Frustrating I know but those were one of main hurdles we had to jump in order to make any support group successful. Over the years in Malaysia, I was involved at helping up the beginning of support group for Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML), lymphoma and now myeloma. So far, only the CML group really took off. It helps when most of the members were youg and relatively fit and vocal. I would be happy if the myeloma was half as successful as their CML counterparts.