Back in my secondary school days, a considerable amount of my sleepless nights were spent thinking about death, and that if i were to die the next day, whether i had any regrets or things that i had not done. I had so many things to say about my life, and to my friends. I fantasized that if I knew my death was coming, I would leave a goodbye note of some sort, which would have contained my true feelings.
Since the probabilty of that happening has defintely increased now, i think it would be nice to go foolproof and materialize such a thing.
I think this is going to be somewhat grand mother^2(lame but nevertheless try to figure out what it meansXD) so people who can't stand tianemoism should probably close the page.
I think its best to start with my life now, and slowly go backwards.
Cancer. A frightening word for some people. Young people think it wouldn't happen to them, middle-aged people are too busy to think about such things, old people don't care cause they're going to die anyway.
I used to think (yes i do think about all kinds of stuff!) that if i got a serious illness like cancer or diabetes or something like that, I would probably be devastated and my world would fall apart. After battling lymphoma for eight months, I can assure you that Cancer is nothing like that. Maybe it is because i ain't afraid to die, having thought about it countless times (everyone has to die right?), or maybe I'm just stone-cold. Sure, the operations are always scary, and I've cried a good number of times. But it is definitely nothing like how it is in the movies.
But i guess its good to write a little about how chemotherapy is about. Chemotherapy is usually carried out in phases, with a standard treatment ranging from about 8 of these phases. In SGH, the treatment for my kind of lymphoma takes eight phases, each phase contains 2 weeks of chemo(4 days of actual chemo drugging, but you have to spend 2 weeks in the hospital). In KK however the treatment is quite different as they have a "day-therapy center" where you can go to take the chemo drugs and go home straight after. Eschewing the need for a hospital admission.
Before every chemotherapy session, a blood test is required. The numbers of each component in your blood has to satisfy a certain number to be able to administer chemo drugs. A syringe is used to suck blood out from your veins, the puncture site is usually on parts of your body where the veins can commonly be seen. Hands, wrist, inside of elbow.. etc. It is also not as simple as poking the skin and immediately getting blood. Amazingly, if the vein is not ruptured, no blood will be spilt. So the doctor, after punturing the skin, would have to shift the needle inside and push the needle further in to get the blood. If theres no blood, he'll shift the needle yet a bit more and push again. A common blood test would go like this. Poke the skin, no blood, shift the needle a bit, push further, no blood. Shift and push again, Which can take many cycles until a vein is punctured. I guess if a tiny ant bit through your skin and crawled inside and moved around and digs deeper and deeper into your flesh, that would probably be how it feels like.
Of course, that is only if you are lucky, if you are unlucky, the doctor, after digging in for blood for an extended period of time and unable to get it, would have to pull the needle out and puncture another area of the skin. In fact my highest record was four puncture sites in a single blood test! How cool. After chemotherapy, a blood test has to be done each day to check that the blood levels are returning to normal (Chemo sort of kills all the stuff in your blood). So a single chemotherapy session can have as many as six or more blood tests, depending on how fast the blood levels rise. In fact, I've had so many of these that the scars from each puncture line up nicely to form this nice dark black line thats along my major veins on my hand. Actually, a blood test is considered an ant bite compared to the actual chemo stuff.
Well apart from the lumbar puncture which i have descibed in detail already. There are the actual chemo drugs that go into your veins. These drugs are the stuff that makes all your hair drop off, lose 10 kg in a week and makes you nauseous like hell. An operation is first carried out to insert what is known as a port into your chest. It is actually a device that is placed just right under your skin that connects itself one of the major arteries near the heart. Think of it as a socket. So everytime they wanna pump chemo in they would just have to insert a big needle into this socket, which links to the artery and the chemo drugs would be flowing safetly through your arteries. Of course everytime this is done, your skin would have to be punctured as well.
The drugs themself well, fells like taking poison. makes you feel really sick and uncomfortable all over. Luckily it only lasts for a few days.
Mentally too, it does take its toll. One of the few scary moments was perhaps the time where i lied in bed unable to move because of an operation and i wanted badly to puke and pee and i was really hungry cause you're not allowed to eat six hours before the operation. And my parents were not around as they were at the foodcourt downstairs and i couldn't call the nurse to as i couldn't reach the callbell haha.. So in the end i just waited for my parents to come back and help me to pee. Or maybe it was that moment when the doctor came in with a serious look on his face, muttered something about a bone marrow and said "mummy and daddy, can we talk outside?". And my parent went out, and i thought at that moment that it was game over, i thought i was going to die. I though "wah so this is how it feels to know that you're going to die." It was nothing really, just a bit sad. In the end i found out they were only discussing about some bone marrow transplant stuff. Haha so it was not game over after all!
But i guess the most depressing moment is when you realize that all your frens are moving on with their lives, experiencing jc life and all, and that you are trapped in the memory of secondary school. That you are distancing ever so further away from them, and that even if you go to school next year, you would be all alone. But actually i wouldn't mind if my class was filled full of ij girls! I would devour them all! Muahahaha.
Okay enough of how chemo is and all. Time to list out my secondary school regrets. I'll bet everyone has a long list of them XD
#1 -not having a girlfriend (yes i am a romantic)
#2 -not having a CCA
#3 -having a bad reputation, in lower sec it was "haolian boy" which i think was coined by miss huang. In upper sec it was more or less "that idiot who always get full marks for math without studying..."
#4 -disappointing the TPA members. And losing the cohesiveness of the group thanks to my lousy attitude.
#5 -confessing to isabel
#6 -not making enough friends
Well six isn't a long list i think.. I bet you have more.
Okay now that thats settled its time to leave the individual messages. It would be good to read this only if something really happens to me since its incredibly corny. But i guess if you've read thus far through that crap, you probably couldn't resist.
TO;
Kenneth:
One of the forefathers of TPA! In fact most of the TPA students- Hexun, Daniel and even Darren were coached by him. So TPA should really be called KPA. "Best Friend" is probably a primary school phrase, but you're defintely in the set. What to do, playing pool everyweek for 6 hours does that to people.
Soomin:
One of the nicest person i know! Also one of the rare few to appreciate jacky cheung.. But why you don't like Leslie? So charismatic! I can become gay for him. Nah just kidding. I might consider though. Thanks for all your chocolates and visits. You are also definitely in the set.
Darren:
You are A~L~S~O in the set. But you exist too in the intersection of this set and another set called "most depressing friends". Well i guess the biggest issue with you is that you do not develop that sense of closeness to people. In most friendships both A(positive) and B(negative) move towards each other on this line of friendship eventually touching and reaching the state of "brotherhoodly closeness". For you, you're like this immovable point and its really frustrating for your more senstitive friends because no matter how close they try and move to you they cannot cross the zero point over to the next side because you won't budge- the state of "brotherhoodly closeness" can never be achieved. Or maybe you have changed. I don't really know because its been so long since our last good conversation. But i really like you cause you grasp mathematical concepts at an awesome rate. For most people its like:
Tian -explain explain*... do you understand?
student- er.. wait ah.. Whats this ah?
Tian -Thats the *blah blah* la!
student- But how do you know how to "blah blah"?!?
Tian - We don't, we derive it from here..
student- where?
By this time the student fails to take in anything i say because all his brain cells are dead and he's super turned off. For you however, its more of like.
Tian -explain explain*... do you understand?
You- okay.
Tian -so following from here, we get this and this..
You- okay.
Tian -so if we go back to the previous result and sub it in here and expand the thing..
You- Oh! then we get the identity!
Tian - Yah!
You - ok cool.
WALAN! The feeling is damm shiok man i never expand you already know expand already get what. Too good!!! haha..
See la you take up so much of the space.. Next!
Teck Siang:
The Champion; cool, calm, zai, chun. Your stance alone scares off any of your opponents. Your long pots are so accurate that it beats the computer aboard NASA's appolo spaceship. Also the only TPA member to master the Shen's snooker method of playing. Just awfully good. I will never forget the times playing snooker with you. In fact when i recover, thats the first thing I'll do. I'm really proud of the way you play.
Hexun
The Hustler; Unpredictable and dynamic. You're the only TPA member able to emulate the awfully difficult Tian's screw. Fast, furious and fearsome, your pure talent would put Ronnie O Sullivan to shame. Just a joy to watch. It must be one of the greatest loses in Singaporean pool that you quit.
OMFG its already FIVE... Guess I'll continue this tomorrow..
----To be Continued----
for all x > 0. I think its quite cool considering that the lnx has no taylor series about zero. (maclaurin series if you like). And like i discovered it on my own! Yay!
