Here's My Story

Ban: The bathroom sink became cleaner after we used it for sometime. Me: I cleaned it. Ban: Ohhhhhh. :)

Yes, the dreaded SPC (sorethroat, phlegm, cough)  strikes again. Funny thing is that preceding this was a huge ulcer at the back of my mouth the day before I traveled from Butterworth to KL. Don't think it's related but thank goodness I developed sorethroat only on the night I arrived. Since my father is undergoing chemotherapy, his immune system is weaker. So when my niece developed high fever, we asked him to wear a mask. However, when any other adults fell sick, he wanted everyone else to wear mask but him @@. By chance, my usual doctor was in his clinic on Sunday (lucky!). He told me that I had "bubbles" of inflammation around my throat that potentially could fuse together if left unchecked. He prescribed antibiotic (he usually tries not to prescribe this), anti-inflammation, something for the phlegm, ponstan and something for phlegm + cough (the last one was prescribed on the day after when I went back again saying that I developed cough). So, the symptoms

About 3 days after the 1st chemo , itchy rash appeared on dad's left leg and his back, and there was swelling on left leg above knee. Coincidentally, the next day, he had follow-up appointment with doctor at the Klinik Kesihatan Penaga re hypertension. Doctor gave calomine lotion for rash and prolase for swelling. The following day, the hospice nurse came along with a doctor. Although she believed the rash and the swelling were chemo's side effects, she said it was unusual they appeared 3 days later (usually almost immediately). She prescribed ceterizine for the itchy rash, nystatin for the whitish and sometimes swollen tongue (pharmacist substituted it with decozol because it wasn't available) and added senna for constipation since it was still a problem despite doubling the frequency of lactul and adding enema, obtained from Penang GH. Two days later was the second chemo session (Cycle 1, Day 8). As usual, oncologist attended to every patient at the start. She prescri

I blogged previously about Ban's unlucky first-use of MyEG service . Bad luck struck again for this first-timer. One day, I purchased an ETS train ticket via KTMB official website. Unlike previous time, when I clicked print, it was a blank page. So I jotted down its ticket and ref ids. I logged back in and using one of these ids, I managed to print the ticket. Later, Ban wanted to purchase a ticket too but he tried easybook.com, which was the website he used the first time he purchased ETS ticket. However, this time, he noticed that the total ticket price is more expensive than that purchased via KTMB website. So he switched to the latter. He encountered the same problem as I did and so replicated what I did. However, the system told him there was no such ticket! Upon my suggestion, he called KTMB and gave as much details as possible. They still said no such ticket. Haiz. Afaik, the KTMB customer service officer said that if it was an error, he would be refunded within 2

Ummmmm I don't think this is a good marketing strategy lol. Ban and I tried this for lunch after gym one day. It was so-so only and for its price, you're better off with Subway even at full price.

I am fine (or at least try to be "fine") with people requesting change in plan due to emergency i.e. unscheduled interruption in electricity, sudden flooding, accident etc. I can also consider requests for change for any other reasons. What gets my goat (except in emergency cases, of course) is the last minute man-made decision to change plans without  discussing with me even though I'm a major participant in that plan and sometimes I'm the one who's needed to ensure the plan succeed. I'm especially miffed when it happens to big plans i.e. plans that take days to materialise. To make last minute changes simply because the requester thinks is "convenient" is definitely not so. Big plans require some coordination in logistics and time management.

Following our suggestion , my dad tried morphine again, preceded with oat and took Dequadin after. No vomit. The next one, he took oat and pork floss respectively. No vomit! Thereafter, he was ok. He did, however, vomit a few times due to gas in his abdomen. Upon the hospice's nurse advice, we got him Gaviscon for it. The hospice nurse's first day here was spent mostly on information gathering but she did answer all our queries and provided relevant advice regarding, say, constipation, vomiting, abdominal gas as well as services that hospice can provide. She is friendly and seems experienced. The following week she would probably bring along a doctor. On the first day of chemo, we arrived at Penang GH about 8.15am. After registration, nurse weighed dad, took his blood pressure and took some blood to test for Hep B and C (only on first visit). Then waited to be called by the oncologist, who asked about his condition and whether he needed top-up for existing medicine.

Once home, dad tried the prescribed morphine . Vomitted less than a minute later. I googled and according to UK's NHS, some patients vomit after ingesting morphine. They advised these patients to eat some food before taking morphine and that this effect should be gone in a few days. So, on his second try, dad had some oat before morphine and then a Dequadin pastille after. It worked! 4 hours later, he also took oat but not the pastille. Unfortunately, about 50 mins later, he vomited during dinner. Henceforth, he was afraid to take morphine and went back to Tramadol. Instead of taking it only when he felt pain is coming, he took it every 4 hours. He still took Gabapentin before sleep. Seems to work well at first but later the gap had shortened to 3 hours. So upon my sister's and my suggestion, he would try morphine again similar to his second try i.e. oat before morpone and Dequadin thereafter. Meanwhile, we got our dad registered with Penang Hospice Society. They would se

I laughed when I read this:

(11) Thought of system restore but had error "System Restore error 0x80070091". Searched online and tried  this solution  but the last step was unsuccessful because the file already existed. (12) Meanwhile, rolled back audio driver and the headphone jack always works now! (13) Re (11) above, just renamed slightly different (added "2" just after "old"). System restore worked but didn't solve the low muffled audio problem. (14) New problem: when I played Faeria, Overwatch and Atlas Reactor, at least one of these happened: (a) flickering (b) discolouration (c) patches of monocolours (d) entire screen filled with coloured lines of varying width Strangely, these didn't happen to Paladins, Small World 2, Guild Wars 2 and Crusader Kings 2. Was advised by Dell to choose "on" for vertical sync setting in NVIDIA control panel (although I would think the default "use the 3D application setting" is better) and to use the given