Maintenance Chemo Round 1

Tuesday morning, 11 October I had another CT scan.  Tuesday night we toasted our eldest and his wife with champagne on the occasion of their fifth wedding anniversary.

Wednesday I was at the hospital at 8.30 am for my blood test.  Then I went and picked up my CT scan and provided it to reception for Dr Lisa.  Spent time in the café having coffee and reading my spy book.  Then back to the waiting room and after 11.00 saw Dr Nick Coupe, the registrar.  He was very happy with the CT scan results.  The main lesions being monitored in the liver had not changed since last time, indicating the cancer has stabilised.  So, overall I have had a 37% reduction and now it is a matter of the cancer remaining ‘dormant’.  When Dr Lisa Horvath joined us, she thought ‘dormant’ was an appropriate description.

She decided that I should move to maintenance chemotherapy, which means only the Avastin at the hospital and Xeloda Capecitabine tablets – four each morning and each night for two weeks in each cycle of three weeks.  So, I have one week of no chemo.  When holidaying for longer periods, I will not have any chemo.  Every three months will be a CT scan to see what the cancer is doing.  If, or when, there is an increase it will be zapped with regular chemo treatment and then back to maintenance mode.  This will continue until it is decided there is no further benefit.  Nick was optimistic that my prognosis is good.  I am with him!  The tablets are a similar chemo to the Fluorouracil in the bottle.  This chemo can result in side effects of peeling palms and soles, and diarrhoea, which I am hoping will not occur.

My main hassle has been increased intensity of one of the side effects.  Back at the last chemo treatment my side effects were some queasiness, morning light nose bleeding (and again this morning, from the Avastin), bit of discomfort in the mouth and numbness in the fingers and toes.  All but the numbness disappeared quickly.  I have sensation of both numbness and feeling.  As Dr Lisa warned, the numbness has increased.  The numbness has moved further down the fingers and spread from my toes to the balls of my feet.  She thinks it now is at its maximum and will reduce.  The reduction is likely to take two months, even a year and might not completely disappear.  Meanwhile, I dropped my camera on concrete in Penang but it is still working.  A sandwich slipped through my fingers at high tea.  I am struggling to do up my button on the left cuff of long sleeved shirts – often need to sit and look hard – all buttons are more awkward.  Lisa said my depth perception has been affected.  So, I cannot touch type so well – often hitting wrong keys, especially with my right hand.  Please forgive any mistakes remaining in this and the previous blog update.  Hopefully, next time I report, there will be improvement.

So, I am feeling a little sorry for myself, as the numbness is a nuisance.  Yesterday, my brother reminded me of the suffering I have seen in others and how minimal my hassles have been.  He is right.  Yesterday, I sat next to a 16 year old young Asian woman having chemo.  Her stoic mother accompanied her and you could see the love and sadness in her eyes as she encouraged her daughter by her presence.

Today, I am finalising the blog entries after having met with our new financial planner, while Barbara is volunteering at the Petersham opportunity shop.  Tonight ESFNG are coming here for dinner.  I am listening to Cher’s Greatest Hits.  I am thinking of reducing the size and frequency of my blog entries.  Feel free to let me know what you think.

At Home and Abroad

The three weeks between Chemo Round 12 and Maintenance Chemo Round 1 were spent at home and abroad in Singapore and Malaysia.

I enjoyed facilitating the financial modules of the Company Directors Course in Sydney on Friday 23 September.  I ‘lost’ my photo album book at the course on Sunday I attended with Phil and Katharine.  I found it hard to take and went home at lunchtime.  However, after a lunch I started again on the Apple Macintosh and had success.  I applied techniques learned in the morning and created a 56 page Lake Eyre album.  I still have some finishing touches before I arrange for printing.

Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 September I worked on the wall garden.  The earth is now all sifted, the bricks cleaned and a portion of the wall rebuilt.  While I was overseas, one of my sons wheel-barrowed three loads of bricks from under the front of the house to the back and Barbara cleaned any that were dirty.  So, now it is a matter of finishing the wall building and filling the garden.

Wednesday night we attended the Mary Poppins stage show at the Capitol Theatre.  We enjoyed tapas at a Spanish Restaurant and the show was absolutely fabulous.  It is the best musical I have attended – the staging, the scenery and scenery changes, singing, dancing and acting were superb.  The story is positive and uplifting and as I was feeling teary with happiness I thought of the value of applying the positive thought in my own life.  At the end Mary Poppins flies off from the stage over the audience and disappears into the high ceiling of the ornate Art Deco theatre.  The audience was enrapt by the performance.  Thursday I visited with neighbours Joy and Graeme.

Friday 30 September I flew Qantas to Singapore for my eleven days abroad.  Saturday I caught up with friends Lay Geok and Danny for morning tea, Lee Hiah for lunch, and Yvonne, Alita and Vissia for dinner.  Morning tea was on Keppel Island at a café.  Lunch was Japanese, at Akashi Restaurant, Vivo City.  Dinner was at the White Rabbit, near Dempsey Hill, which is an interesting area of antique shops and restaurants in the old British Army Base.  Sunday I facilitated the financial modules of the International Company Directors at the Sentosa Resort, Sentosa Island and flew in the early evening to Kuala Lumpur.

Monday 3 to Wednesday 5 October I facilitated my 3 Day MBA in Finance (a fancy title for Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers) at the JW Marriott Hotel.  Both seminars were well received and I coped well with four days facilitation in a row, including changing countries.  On the Monday and Tuesday evenings I went to bed around 8 pm to make sure I had enough sleep.

Wednesday afternoon I caught a taxi to Simon and Diana’s place.  Simon was there to greet me.  We headed for a resort hotel where Diana and their children were enjoying time with their friends from Sydney.  We enjoyed an adults only drink time followed by a Chinese dinner in a nearby popular restaurant.

One of my enjoyments of Malaysia is teh tarik (pulled tea) and roti.  Simon and Diana indulged my passion several times.  There is a 24 hour restaurant about 2 minutes walk from their home.  I had a couple of breakfasts there and also enjoyed teh tarik in other places during my four-day stay.

Thursday afternoon we drove to the state and island of Penang where we stayed at The Blue Mansion, a fantastic UNESCO endorsed boutique hotel in the middle of the Georgetown World Heritage site.  Diana could not have chosen better!  This Chinese mansion was built in 1880 by Cheong Fatt Tze, a successful businessman and Mandarin.  It was one of several mansions he built in Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and two in mainland China.  In these homes he housed his eight wives.  Over the years three of his wives lived in the Penang mansion including his favourite seventh wife, 50 years his junior and father of his last son, who inherited and lost the mansion.  From being neglected, the mansion was bought by concerned locals and faithfully restored during the 1990s.  It helped galvanise interest in preserving the colonial heritage of Georgetown.

Friday we did a self-guided walking tour, which, along with the Blue Mansion is featured in my Malaysian photos at http://gallery.me.com/davidheyc#100147.  Though the weather was mild during my trip, when the sun was out, it was hot.  On two stops, we enjoyed refreshing drinks.  In the early afternoon we were enthralled by the Blue Mansion house tour conducted by the hotel manager.  In the late afternoon we enjoyed a delicious English high tea at the historic Eastern and Oriental Hotel.

I did not expect that the country in which I have enjoyed two English high teas would be Malaysia – Georgetown and at the Carcosa Seri Negara Hotel, Kuala Lumpur last year!

The other places I have enjoyed it are with William at the Epcot Centre, Disneyworld, Orlando, Florida (1996); with my brother and Barbara at the Victoria Falls Hotel, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (2006); and with Bonnie and Brian and Barbara at the Empress Hotel, Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia (2008).  Maybe some day I should try it in England!

Saturday Diana and I walked a couple of minutes from the hotel to the oldest European graveyard in Georgetown.  We passed through the protestant section into the smaller Catholic section where two of Diana’s European relatives are buried.  The graveyard has supposedly been restored but we could not find their grave.  These people were the family into which Diana’s grandmother and mother were adopted.  Then we drove around Penang Island, something that neither Simon nor Diana had done.  They have been to Penang many times and Diana lived there during some of her childhood.  There is no road fully around the coast.  You can go so far and then have to cross over the hills to another part of the coast.  The roads were winding due to the coastline and the hills.  We visited a waterfall, had lunch of Assam laksa at Eric Kee’s weekend restaurant and inspected a nutmeg farm run by Chang Kun Mim.  These events proved most enjoyable and worthwhile.  We saw old style wooden homes with louver windows and Malay style fishing villages.  This area of the island was referred to as the ‘backside of the island’ and was more interesting being away from the tourist resorts.

The rest areas on the expressway were also interesting with amazing numbers of people and extensive facilities at some.  The last one we stopped at was like a shopping mall, featuring local food products and other shops.

Sunday was a slower day.  I went early to the airport with Diana and Simon, who were flying to a wedding elsewhere in Malaysia.  I used the time to read – have read several really good books lately: Forgiving the Dead Man Walking, Stranger in the Forest  and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind plus two enjoyable spy story books.  Sunday night was a great time at dinner with Ek Khuan (friend from 1970s Arthur Young days) at the Crowne Plaza, Changi Airport, Singapore.  Monday I flew home on a day flight.