Post-medical Recovery Journey

"Do not let them (God's Words) depart from your sight; Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body" (Proverbs 4:21-22)

 

A close friend forwarded to me a video about how a Taiwanese brain surgeon overcame his colon cancer some years back. He went for the chemo treatment as usual but refused to have the operation to remove the tumour. The subsequent scan showed that the tumour was gone, and he has been well since then.

 

Although there is no such thing as one formula fits all, I think some of his ideas are very helpful in the recovery journey for any cancer patient:

 

(1) Overcome fear- This helps one to stay positive and be pro-active in pursuing recovery. This is the most difficult thing to conquer. It is tough not to have negative thoughts when we are in troubles. Most cancer patients faced this the first two years upon diagnosis.

(2)Cultivate peaceful mind -Get rid of temperament that impedes recovery such as unforgiving spirit, bad temper.

(3)Plenty of rest, learn to relax, enjoy food, live comfortably. Enough sleep is important.

(4) Build up strong immune system by eating well, have balanced diet. Don’t have to go for any special diet.

(5)Exercise- go for those that promote relaxation such as qigong. Avoid sudden strenuous exercise.

(6)Food- eat more veggie, less meat. Go for fresh food rather than everything organic. Avoid canned food, oily/fried/BBQ food and milk.

(7)Healthy bowel movement everyday- prevents toxins from forming in our body.

MH370 -the anomaly of anomaly?

‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9)

 

The recent MH370 tragedy has captured the whole world attention. What actually happened to the flight is still a mystery with almost one month has gone by (since 8th of March), no wreckage has yet been found. People started to come up with all sorts of theories to explain away the possibility, and one expert in fact described the whole episode as an anomaly of anomaly. Is it? Can we ignore the human aspect of it?

 

I see this whole incident reflects the depravity of human nature. A visit to Cambodia Genocide Museum or the Holocaust Memorial Center will testify to that. Any person is capable of devising a diabolic scheme to achieve his goal whilst inflicts maximum pain upon his fellowmen. The person behind this tragedy is one such being, who deliberately shutdown all radar signals to evade the detection of its diverted flight path so as to fly far off course to somewhere unknown. Experts have come up with many suggestions to improve the technical aspects of the plane, tighten aviation procedures and airport security. However, at the end of the day, none of these measures can beat the power of human mind when it is used in the wrong way.

 

Can we fully comprehend what these passengers (including babies) went through during the whole journey? Are we able to adequately describe the anguish and turmoil faced by their families? The possibility of no closure or answers on their loved ones is a very painful thing to live with. My heart really goes to them.

'Buck-passer'

There was this little boy who offered to help his busy mother cleaning up the basement of the house. While he was down there sweeping the floor, a mouse came out from beneath the sofa. Unfortunately it ran the wrong way. The boy smashed it against the wall with the broom. The mouse ran again and this time he beat it hard about ten rounds. When he got through with it, the whole thing was awesome. It was bloody and horrible looking.

 

The boy was so proud of what he had done that he grabbed the mouse by the tail, ran up the stair and went to look for his mother. He rushed straight to the living room without realised that a pastor happened to visit his mother. The pastor was sitting right behind the door so the boy couldn’t see him. The boy shouted,” Mother…mother, when I was down the basement, this mouse crept out from the sofa. So I took the broom and hit it once but it didn’t die. So I hit it again and again until it stopped running…….”, then he saw the pastor and was horrified. He continued,“Then….and....then the Lord called it home."

CT scan and blood tests

‘The LORD sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.’ (Psalm 41:3)

 

I went for my medical appointment last Wednesday to collect the medical reports. It has been a year since I last done my scan. The left gastric node is still there (1.4mm x 10mm) but stable since it was first discovered in March 2012 scan. The CA 125 reading is 9. I have now passed the 5-year survival mark.

 

To recap, I went for my first operation (my CA 125 marker was about 2,100 then) to remove one tumour (10cm) in late October 2008, and commenced the chemo program in December. In February 2009 I had the other big tumour removed by another surgeon and was in ICU for several days. Thereafter my chemo treatment resumed and ended in early May 2009, after 7 rounds’ (21- weekly) of treatment. By then my marker has dropped down to about 13. Two months later I went for my TCM consultation and has been on the Chinese concoction till now.

 

The journey has been a tough one as I was very feeble in the first two years, experienced the severe side effects of the chemotherapy and removal of ovaries. My doctor gives a very poor prognosis of my condition and I can understand why. I felt utterly despair and was prepared to face the worst. My only hope is to look up - to God. Never once I become bitter with God as He gave me many warning signs but I failed to slow down to care for myself. It has been a life-transforming experience for me. It has impacted every aspect of my being. This is a miracle from God. I realised often I have been taking God’s mercy and grace for granted. Like Job, I can now say that “when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.” (Job 23:10). I am now more ready to battle storms of life than before.

Internet hoax

Information has been expanding exponentially in this internet age. In the past it used to double every ten years. We were already found ourselves unable to catch up then. Now things have become worst. People tend not to process the information they received by carrying out fact finding, too eager to pass it over to their contacts. Of course, nowadays with the help of technology, it has become faster and easier to do such than by word-of-mouth. Hence, we ended up receiving lot of junk stuffs and many of them are ‘hoax’ in nature.

 

The most common types of Internet hoax are those related to internet viruses and health tips from the ‘experts’. Here are some that I received recently:

(1) Internet virus alert message (Update Window live) – It has been circulating over the years, resurfaced from time to time. It claims that it will burn your whole hard disk and render your computer irreparable. It says that this is the worst virus announced by CNN and has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive one, and discovered by McAfee. You can’t find any such announcement on any of these companies’ websites!

(2) All European new born babies will be micro chipped from May 2014 – The news says that his chip will also be an impressive GPS sensor that will task with a micro- disposable battery every 2 years. It will be linked straight to a satellite, which will guide the networks. Interestingly, this article attracted 180 comments from readers who believed this news is true!

(3) On Dec 31st and 1st Jan 2014, the popular Whatsapp will become chargeable. It will cost 1 cent (euro) per message. However if one sends this message to 10 people, it will show that he is an avid user and his logo will become blue, otherwise, whatsapp will activate the billing!

(4) A FB user received information from someone that FB has changed its privacy configuration that any person on FB anywhere in the world has accessed to someone else’s photos posted, the “likes” and “comments”, unless he asks all his contacts in FB to do these steps. First, place the cursor over his photo that appears in the box (without clicking) and a window will open. Now move the cursor to the word “Friends”, again without clicking and then go to “Settings”. Un-check “Life Events” and “Comments” and “Like” and “photos”. This way, his activities with his family and friends will no longer be made public. Fortunately he was told shortly by a friend that this is an old scam. None of his contacts wasted their time by following his weird and ludicrous ‘instructions’!

 

Health tips by ‘experts’ are the most proliferated ones as everyone wants to stay healthy. I learnt not to take anonymous health advice seriously as many are contradictory. You can end up confuse, and do more harm to your body by following these tips blindly. The ways they explained how our body works are utterly ridiculous, for examples:

 

(1) ‘Why do people need to urinate so much at night time? Answer from the Cardiac Doctor, Dr Stephen Mak (is there such a person?) - Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are upright (legs swell). When you lie down and the lower body (legs and etc.) seeks level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier. Correct time to drink water is very important. Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body: 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs ;1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion; 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure; 1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack.’

(2) ‘It's important to know how and when to eat fruit. It means not eating fruit after a meal! Fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach, and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil. Eat your fruit on an empty stomach, or before your meal! Fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas. Hence, you bloat! Grey hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes -all of these will NOT happen if you eat fruit on an empty stomach.’

(3) ‘Drinking Cold water after a meal = Cancer! The cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you've just consumed, which slows digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It may even be your own life!’

Valentine's Day

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

 

“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather he will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?” (Mother Teresa)

 

 

Valentine’s Day is here again, a time associated with romance and red roses. Love is in the air. We can attempt to do many good things but if we do them without love, ultimately there is no value in what we do.

 

The dictionary defines love as a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection to a person, people or thing. Unfortunately it only gives one-sided meaning to it as it says only about the one who loves, but nothing at all on the beloved. I like how the Apostle Paul gives love a deeper meaning through the above epistle he wrote to the Corinthian Christians. He describes what love is about- its characteristics, one that are action-based and other-centred. So it excludes those that we expressed only in thoughts and words, and self-serving type.

 

We can substitute the words “Love” and “it” in the above passage with our names and read it aloud. I think we will fail in every characteristic of love mentioned in it. That shows how fall we all fall short of God’s standard. It also reveals why we have difficult relationships with our fellow beings, how each of us contributes towards making this world an unhappy place to live in, more stress, more unforgiving and less graciousness.

Natural Affection

'Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.' (Franklin D Roosevelt)

It is a fact of life that we are drawn or attracted to some people, and not the others. This is termed as ‘natural affection’. It is based on our feeling, something in that person. However, when our feeling changes towards that person, it can change our affection accordingly. So if the husband tells his wife that he still ‘loves’ her but has no more feeling over her, she will be utterly crushed. I don’t think any woman can accept that!

 

In this country, under the Law of divorce, the most cited reasons for divorce is that the couple’s marriage has irretrievably broken down due to adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion for at least 2 years; or they have lived apart for a continuous period for at least 3 years. A marriage relationship that is anchored around natural affection is very vulnerable to fail.

 

 A marriage mediator once shared this sad story. A couple who were married for nearly 20 years went for counselling. Their relationship turned cold in the last 6 years after a particular domestic incident. The husband’s feeling towards the wife changed, and was adamant on a divorce by citing the wife had ‘unreasonable behaviour’. She refused to divorce despite been offered generous maintenance and share of the matrimonial assets. However, she only had two options- either allowed the divorce to proceed without contesting by accepting the husband’s allegations of her unreasonable behaviour as ‘true’, or contest the divorce. A contested divorce is very costly in terms of time, money and also emotionally. She felt the whole thing was so unfair to her, but finally chose the second option in tears. She was forced to accept her husband’s terms even though she didn’t want a divorce.

Gratitude

‘Always give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Ephesians 5:20)

As we said goodbye to 2013 and embrace this New Year, I think one thing we should not forget to do is to recount our blessings and be grateful to God, and the people who made our lives on this earth better. The world that we lived in is increasingly operated on a culture of ‘nothing to thank for’. The perspective is more of ‘what is my right/entitlement’. For example, natural resources are just things come into existence by chance. If we start to see the things we have as gifts, or as the demonstration of love by someone, then we will learn to appreciate and show gratitude. Such attitude strengthens human relationships, as when we expressed gratitude, we are actually attached values to what we received. We can even see our own lives on higher plane than everything is about cost-and-benefit.

 

In some countries, the attitude of gratitude is emphasized in their culture. For instance, when you are invited to a Danish home for dinner, you are expected to bring flowers, good quality chocolate or wine. One should contact the hostess beforehand whether she would like you to bring a dish. When you are there, offer to help the hostess with the preparation or cleaning up after a meal is served. Wait to be told where to sit. One should not begin to eat until the hostess says,’Vaersgo og spise’, which translates as ‘come on and eat’. At the end of the meal, everybody sat around the table would take turn to thank the hostess, ‘tak for mad, aka’, which means’ thank you for the food’, before leaving the table. The next time when you are in contact with that person by phone or when both met, the first thing to say is ‘thank you for the last time’. Let us join them to make the world at a better place to live in!