I seriously hate cancer...
I feel it's only fair to let you guys know what's been going on with me and my family. But before i do that, i just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart if you have taken a few minutes time out just to keep my brother or family in prayers and also i'm extremely sorry for not replying messages or if you couldn't get through to me for the past few days. My phone got barred by DST 'cause i sort of max-ed out on the roaming services. I didn't expect roaming services to be that expensive.
I just got back from Singapore yesterday...no not from holidays. It's never a holiday for my family in Singapore. We're only there whenever there's some health crisis going on. What was i doing there? My brother's diagnosed with cancer.
Much to our knowledge, this started off with an injury around last year. He injured one of his testicle while playing basketball and it sort of swelled up. My mom brought him over to Singapore last year to get it checked but the doctor said it's only a minor blod clot. Taking some prescribed pills should be able to swell it down. It was only last 3 weeks the swelling and pain began to take place. We went to the local hospital and as predicted, they prescribed panadols. Then as the pain got a bit unbearable, mom decide it's best to fly back to Singapore to get it checked again.
So both my brother and mother went off for what was supposed to be a testicular check up but i guess things went pretty bad. I wasn't there during the first part of the trip but i remembered on Tuesday afternoon, i got a text message from my brother.
"Bro. I might have cancer. Have to cut then i know. Tomorrow operation."
My initial reaction when i first read this sms was 3 simple alphabets. WTF? Although i haven't quite swore for quite a while, i have to be honest that those three alphabets just popped up in my head when i first read the sms. If you thought i'd be LOL-ing, please shoot yourself.
The thing was, we were expecting him to go for operation to remove the injured testicle cause it kinda swelled up to a size of a tennis ball but i never expected any cancer crap to come out of it. But since it's a 'might' from my brother, i just hoped for the best. Then i checked with him again and he mentioned saying his cancer marker from his blood test was very high. And trust me, usually there won't be a false alarm when your blood report says your cancer marker's high. There's no 'might' or 'maybe'. Ashton Kutcher won't pop out of Gleaneagles Hospital saying you've been punk'd with a fake report. Knowing how emotionally unstable my mom could be, i thought it'd be better if i flew off to Singapore to accompany her in case there's more bad news.
So i left for Singapore on Friday and went straight to the hospital. The moment i saw mom, i knew she'd been crying. Then she told me about doctors saying bro's got Seminoma Cancer which i was later told that it's highly curable. But the next day was pretty much the crappiest day for us. The doctor who operated on my brother suggested that my brother should go for a CT scan to check whether or not the cancer has spread since the his testicle was pretty much like a size of a grapefruit. I don't know how big a grapefruit is but all i know was, it's huge. When the report came out, doctor broke the news to us saying that the cancer indeed has spread to his his lymph nodes where there's a 5cm tumor growing there (initially we thought it was the stomach), trachea and a bit on his lungs. Then he went on and on saying how serious the situation is, and the worst case we're looking at is a fourth stage cancer, how he needs to undergo chemotherapy treatment as soon as possible when his operation wounds are healed and all those...but he didn't really specify how deadly or how much time we have as we have to wait for the oncologist to give us a more detailed report.
Then he gave us a bit of well wishes and just left the freakin' room...
With such serious remarks, of course it sounded pretty much like "Dude, you're gonna die!" for both my mom and brother cause they're no doctors. It pretty much left us hanging and i seriously hate the whole 'leave me hanging' feeling. Mom kept crying each time she thinks about my brother's condition back in the room. I couldn't really understand or feel anything cause it's all happening way too quick.
When the oncologist doctor came, he finally explained to us what the current situation was like. Much to our relief, even though there are cancer cells in my brother's body, the 'good news' (i seriously don't know how having cancer can be a good news) is that it's a common cancer which most people face and it's curable...with the right chemotherapy. Upon hearing that, of course everyone felt a bit more at ease. It's like getting transferred from a death sentence by the court of law to a juvenille hall instead. But the fact still remains that my brother has cancer. And that really sucks...big time. This time at least mom could joke a bit. She said something about not 'chun' (accurate) when striking 4D but so 'chun' in striking cancer which i thought was hillarious.
Cancer patient...
I always tend to be optimistic in times like these. So in order to get me through it, i would always look at the bright side of the whole thing. He finally admitted saying he want to accept Christ in his life and also, he finally quit smoking...the hard way.
Right now i really can't tell you guys what's gonna happen. Of course we will send my brother for chemotherapy but my mother just don't want it to be done here after seeing what my dad's been through. We are trying to get the government's help for the treatment but we'll leave that to them. I'm still pretty much dazed from what happened during the past week so i might be a bit off. Do continue to keep us in prayer for now. There's definitely going to be a lot of decision making in where to go for chemo, what to do, etc. I just pray that God will lead the path.
In Him
I just got back from Singapore yesterday...no not from holidays. It's never a holiday for my family in Singapore. We're only there whenever there's some health crisis going on. What was i doing there? My brother's diagnosed with cancer.
Much to our knowledge, this started off with an injury around last year. He injured one of his testicle while playing basketball and it sort of swelled up. My mom brought him over to Singapore last year to get it checked but the doctor said it's only a minor blod clot. Taking some prescribed pills should be able to swell it down. It was only last 3 weeks the swelling and pain began to take place. We went to the local hospital and as predicted, they prescribed panadols. Then as the pain got a bit unbearable, mom decide it's best to fly back to Singapore to get it checked again.
So both my brother and mother went off for what was supposed to be a testicular check up but i guess things went pretty bad. I wasn't there during the first part of the trip but i remembered on Tuesday afternoon, i got a text message from my brother.
"Bro. I might have cancer. Have to cut then i know. Tomorrow operation."
My initial reaction when i first read this sms was 3 simple alphabets. WTF? Although i haven't quite swore for quite a while, i have to be honest that those three alphabets just popped up in my head when i first read the sms. If you thought i'd be LOL-ing, please shoot yourself.
The thing was, we were expecting him to go for operation to remove the injured testicle cause it kinda swelled up to a size of a tennis ball but i never expected any cancer crap to come out of it. But since it's a 'might' from my brother, i just hoped for the best. Then i checked with him again and he mentioned saying his cancer marker from his blood test was very high. And trust me, usually there won't be a false alarm when your blood report says your cancer marker's high. There's no 'might' or 'maybe'. Ashton Kutcher won't pop out of Gleaneagles Hospital saying you've been punk'd with a fake report. Knowing how emotionally unstable my mom could be, i thought it'd be better if i flew off to Singapore to accompany her in case there's more bad news.
So i left for Singapore on Friday and went straight to the hospital. The moment i saw mom, i knew she'd been crying. Then she told me about doctors saying bro's got Seminoma Cancer which i was later told that it's highly curable. But the next day was pretty much the crappiest day for us. The doctor who operated on my brother suggested that my brother should go for a CT scan to check whether or not the cancer has spread since the his testicle was pretty much like a size of a grapefruit. I don't know how big a grapefruit is but all i know was, it's huge. When the report came out, doctor broke the news to us saying that the cancer indeed has spread to his his lymph nodes where there's a 5cm tumor growing there (initially we thought it was the stomach), trachea and a bit on his lungs. Then he went on and on saying how serious the situation is, and the worst case we're looking at is a fourth stage cancer, how he needs to undergo chemotherapy treatment as soon as possible when his operation wounds are healed and all those...but he didn't really specify how deadly or how much time we have as we have to wait for the oncologist to give us a more detailed report.
Then he gave us a bit of well wishes and just left the freakin' room...
With such serious remarks, of course it sounded pretty much like "Dude, you're gonna die!" for both my mom and brother cause they're no doctors. It pretty much left us hanging and i seriously hate the whole 'leave me hanging' feeling. Mom kept crying each time she thinks about my brother's condition back in the room. I couldn't really understand or feel anything cause it's all happening way too quick.
When the oncologist doctor came, he finally explained to us what the current situation was like. Much to our relief, even though there are cancer cells in my brother's body, the 'good news' (i seriously don't know how having cancer can be a good news) is that it's a common cancer which most people face and it's curable...with the right chemotherapy. Upon hearing that, of course everyone felt a bit more at ease. It's like getting transferred from a death sentence by the court of law to a juvenille hall instead. But the fact still remains that my brother has cancer. And that really sucks...big time. This time at least mom could joke a bit. She said something about not 'chun' (accurate) when striking 4D but so 'chun' in striking cancer which i thought was hillarious.
Cancer patient...
I always tend to be optimistic in times like these. So in order to get me through it, i would always look at the bright side of the whole thing. He finally admitted saying he want to accept Christ in his life and also, he finally quit smoking...the hard way.
Right now i really can't tell you guys what's gonna happen. Of course we will send my brother for chemotherapy but my mother just don't want it to be done here after seeing what my dad's been through. We are trying to get the government's help for the treatment but we'll leave that to them. I'm still pretty much dazed from what happened during the past week so i might be a bit off. Do continue to keep us in prayer for now. There's definitely going to be a lot of decision making in where to go for chemo, what to do, etc. I just pray that God will lead the path.
In Him
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