The thing i fear most

Woohoo. Finally home after 4days in the hospital. I seem to be there more often than at home. Anyway, did a lumbar puncture this time. Did it a couple of times before, but none seemed to be as painful as this one. Luckily there were no side effects. Except a little bit of vomiting and headache, which were normal.

For all those who are wondering whats a lumbar puncture, it is a procedure where a needle is injected to the spine from the back so that the chemo medicine can reach the brain. (Yes, cancer cells can hide there too.) And normal chemo through the veins don't reach the brain well so.. Anyway i'm not a biologist.

Yupp thats the procedure right there. And if the picture doesn't show it, which i seriously think it does, it IS painful.

Doctor walks into room. "Okay weizhou are you ready?"

"No i'm not" Nah i didn't really said that i just kept quiet.

Doctor lifts up shirt and pulls down pants. Starts cleaning the area with iodine using circular motions. The area feels cold.

Dcotors prepares needles. (Damn long one later i show you.) "Okay weizhou going in ah" *PIERCE*

The Doctor continued pushing the needle deeper into the flesh when suddenly the syringe hits a sensitive spot, might be a nerve or bone or muscle mass. And i scream fuck repeatedly in my head. All the while in the bloody head-touching-knee crouching position.

The pain becomes too intense. I let out a groan. The chibye Doctor doesn't care, continues pushing the needle in. You were the one who said you didn't need sedation after all. (Sedation harms the body and has side effects like headache and nauseous. Usually used only on babies and young kids.) The doctor cannot finds the spot. Pulls the needle out and the horror begins again.

After two to three succesive tries, the doctor finally hits the spinal space. The medicine starts flowing in. That takes bout 1 minute. Finally the doctor pulls the needle out and applies a bandage on the now half swollen site. The procedure is complete. But the nightmare is not over.

After the physical torture, you are now asked to lie on the bed flat for 6 hours. And they mean totally flat. No pillow, no tilting the bed up even 10 degrees. No going to the toilet within the first 5 hours. Supposingly its to help restore the whatever pressure and help heal the wound. So being a good boy, i listen.

You try and get some sleep. Dreams of some chiobu with Edison chen. Wakes up. Shit. Only 1 hour has passed. But now you dun feel sleepy anymore. The excruciating backache is still there. You try to think of some maths formulas. Converting from cartesian to polar coordinates. Damn only 5 minutes has passed. You think about other things. All your other friends and what they are doing now. how you all used to play in the past. Okay 30 minute has passed.

And you wait and wait and wait for what seems like an eternity, but only 1 hour has passed. ITs freaking boring and freaking torturing but you can't move. You have to lie flat. You start singing some jay chou songs. Time still passes slowly.

And finally. 6 hours passed. You get up in excitement. Bad move. The chemo medicine makes you feel nauseous and the sudden movement makies it even worse. You vomit on the floor. The mee goreng from morning spills out from your gut in all its red glory. You start having a headache.

-End of story-

Okay luckily by the next day most of the side effects were gone except a little bit of nauseous and backache. And here are the needles used.

Advice: Eat more fruits and vegetables to prevent getting cancer.