The Big C

• You don't realize how strong the sense of belonging and the feeling of oneness in a family until one of the family members falls seriously sick and every member of the family clamor to give all the support and love throughout the sickness to save the sick sibling.  I am writing this entry through my own experience when one of my sisters was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (MM) ...one of The Big Cs a couple of years back.

  
  

  Multiple myeloma originates from the plasma cells in the white blood cells.  Normally plasma develops when you are ill or infected by a virus.  It will produce antibodies.  In myeloma cases, these antibodies do not dissolve and get out of the body.  Instead it keeps developing more cells and this time it is cancerous cells.  She was diagnosed with this cancer when her arm bones fractured.  These cancerous cells settled on the bones and dig in fusion, tiny holes in the bones.  The treatment was terrible...she had to undergo stem cells transplant, which I in person witnessed (kept her company in the cold treatment room for a while to give her moral support) the collection of good cells from her bone marrow, which was later transplant into her body to help produce new quality blood. Her blood composition is not yet back to normal with the red blood cell count reaching only 10 - 11 (average for women is 12), and her white blood cell count is 4 - 5 (normal is 7).  Otherwise Alhamdulillah she is still alive. The information I got from  "guidebooks@medifocus.com", this disease is very rare among Asians but only Allah Knows Best why she has to suffer so...

  
  

  Here is part of the treatment she had to undergo:

  
  

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  • Chemotherapy
    
    

    • She was attached to this tube  and machine for 4 days, medicine is dripped into her body. The vein in the neck area is said to be bigger and tube is inserted to extract blood and drip in medicine for longer period, weeks etc. The pain needless to say, was excruciating and she needs to suck morphine.

    
    

    Throughout her battle with MM and the painful treatments, relatives and friends near and far and foremost her foster sister were always at hand with prayers and tended to all her needs.  A person with terminal disease needs their spirit to be uplifted to go on fighting the dreaded disease and to go on living.  Let them know that they will always be surrounded with love and care. Never let them go down into depression as that will surely be fatal because they felt they are unloved by close family as what had happened to some of my sis's friends who suffered from other forms of cancer.

    
    

    I have to include this video of our dear grandnephew who played 'Andai Ku Tahu' for his grandaunt who at the time was too weak to even lift up her hand...