Part nine: Afighter to the end.

Praying for a miracle.

Two weeks after surgery, there’s fluid accumulated under my arms causing my already flab arm to grow flabbier. So I had a medical officer withdrawing the fluid out using a syringe. I healed speedily after that.

The following week, I had an appointment with my Oncologist, she was never around during my first mastectomy and chemo treatment four years ago. I brought her an updated data of my medical file report from Ms Suina and again I felt dissapointed, there was no Onco that day, again as before she did not turn up for the combine meeting held a week prior. It was decided during the meeting that I was to have a C-sec at 30 weeks of my pregnancy, and followed by a chemo treatment about 2 weeks after.

In humans, birth normally occurs at a gestational age of about 40 weeks, though a normal range is from 38 to 42 weeks.  "Full-term" is the length of a complete pregnancy - 37 to 41 weeks. “Pre-term” means “before term”, that is a pregnancy less than 37 weeks. A preterm or premature baby is a baby born before 37 weeks of pregnancy. The body and organs of a preterm baby is not yet fully develop even though the outcomes for preterm babies survival are improving, but they are still at higher risk of having health problems.

It was only after I voiced out my concerns about the baby being born at 30 weeks of my pregnancy to the Oncologist in regards of my fear of the risks, the baby might end up suffering from lungs failure, infection, brain haemorrhage, apnea... She agreed to let the delivery be delayed at 32 weeks ofmy pregnancy. "At patient preference" she told her medical officer to write in my file, in case I brought it against her in the future. And chemo was to start 4 weeks after that.

I was also told that this is not a recurrence, but a second primary, meaning a new cancer unrelated to the first one although they appear to share most characteristics: grade 3 tumor, triple negative...

I preferred to have a chemo 3 weeks after my C-sec, knowing that I'll recover fast but the Oncologist, as always hardly around during combine meeting, how could she be able to really absorb the real situation I am in? A week may not seem much of a wait to anyone but to a cancer patient...they are days worth counting.

I was at Kinokuniya KLCC with Nina when I came across an interesting book I badly wanted to read but dare not buy, title “What Your Doctors Do Not Tell You”. I flipped to the pages relating to my ailment and there was this question from the book that enticed me…
"Why is it that a cancer patient survival is always evaluated at a five year time frame, not ten or twenty?"

The common believe is that if you pass the five-year mark, you are considered "cured", which is not true as cancers are not curable. I've met and seen cancer patient who fall back after seven and ten years of success treatments.

The book insists that chemo or whatever drug available is only able to put you in remission for five years, if you are lucky. Most cancer patients die of cancer, sooner or later.

I personally do not care which comes first, as long as it doesn't come anytime soon. I don't mind dying. What I worry most is the welfare of my children Kristina and the unborn baby Kriss. It's damn difficult not to believe in statistics with eleven lymph node positive for  metastatic cancer, I keep on hoping and praying for a miracle...

for me....