Day 10: No more drips!

The Dr removed the drips yesterday. Hopefully daddy's belly would be smaller now that there isn't anymore fluid pumping in.

Dr is happy with daddy's progress. He will start daddy on soft food and monitor him for a few days before sending him home. :)

Let me guide you!

Daddy asked the nurse to remove the tube from the machine because he needs to use the toilet. He had to teach the nurse how to wrap the end of the tube so that milk won't spill out. The nurses here are very humble, so they just follow his instructions. :)

AHhhhh.. relieved!

Daddy resting after using the toilet. He is sitting on a tube (the head nurse suggested him to sit on it whenever he sits on a chair). Spot his right hand? No more drips! :)

I can't wait for daddy to be home so that I can spend more time with him. Even though we don't usually talk when we are together (my mum calls it "heart to heart" talk). Silent but yet we understand each other the best. Probably because I'm not much of a talker and so is my dad. We can spend a few hours in the same room, not saying much. Especially in car rides, we can be silent throughout the journey. Yet, I'm daddy's girl. :)

Day 9: Room 6335

My dad was moved from Level 5 to Level 6 yesterday. Right after daddy moved to his new room, the nurses check his back. (Afraid that he may get a bed sore.) They saw red spots at this tail bone & pelvic bone and they immediately informed the head nurse.

The head nurse then came to suggest my dad to apply a certain type of cream to prevent his skin from rotting and change his bed to air bed (which cost RM39 extra per night). My dad agreed to her suggestion cause he wouldn't want to deal with another type of pain.

So far, he's feeling comfortable with the cream and the air bed. At least his backbone feels more comfortable now. (Thank God for the nurses. They are so caring! God bless them.Well, they could have just left my dad there and don't bother to check his back.)

My mum likes the view in this room. It is a better scenery. However, it is very warm in the afternoon as the sun would shine in. They will have to turn on the air conditioner.

The HTC boys!

Han asked daddy about an application on his phone (which is also a HTC). Daddy was showing him the application on his phone. (They look like they are playing a game together.. hahaha..)

Touch here then there. :)

He has been playing with his hp and also watching tv more often now. He even asked me to bring his spectacles today so that he could read the highlights shown on CNN. (He have to strain his eyes to read it at the moment.)

The dietician increased daddy's milk intake. She also added Prosure into the mixture. It gave daddy discomfort initially. He just started yesterday, so hopefully he didn't have any discomfort at night. Soon the Dr would remove the drips, which would help daddy to reduce the fluid in his abdominal area. 

Let's pray for daddy's body to be able to adapt to this new recipe. :)

Comments disappeared

Hey everyone!

I could not trace back the comments made on the previous posts. Something must have gone wrong when I was exporting and importing between blogs.

My apologies for the technical error. Your previous thoughts and wishes will be kept in my heart.

Cheers,

ce5nt's daughter

The end of the 1st of trimester..

My dad ended his first trimester taking chinese herbal medicine given by the Acupuncturist.

Here are some photos of him taking his chinese herbal medicine...

Herbal Medicine Tarik!

He will "tarik" the medicine himself so that the medicine won't get stuck at the bottom of the cup.

Daddy's favourite: Black Dates!

As he eats this, he would repeatedly tell us that this is the best food that he has ever tasted since his operation. It's easy to eat, nice and he don't mind eating it the whole day. The pleasure on his face when he eats it is priceless! He'll go "Mmmmm, this is nice! Mmmmm, this is the best!" :)

The start of the second trimester wasn't very interesting for daddy as he was admitted into the hospital. His treasure hunt mates convinced him to use the tube feeding and we are all very happy that they succeeded in persuading him.

(Thank you guys once again. Words can't express how much we appreciate you making the effort to help daddy to be brave!)

Checking in to the hospital wasn't easy this time around as there were so many emergency cases. We had to wait for nearly 3 hours before dad was sent to his ward. This time around they gave him a room in Level 5 which my parents did not prefer. They prefer to be at Level 6 because the nurses there are more experienced in dealing with daddy. 

However, Level 6 is currently under renovation. My mum "booked" a room for daddy to be moved up to Level 6 next week when the renovation is completed. Some of the nurses from Level 6 were at Level 5 and they could recognize my parents and welcome daddy to go to Level 6 next week upon hearing my mum's request.

Here's some photos to mark daddy's journey at the beginning of his 2nd trimester...

Day 2: Spot the tube?

He was listening to my sister. She was telling him about her first day at work.He didn't respond much because the tube was disturbing his throat. So he couldn't really talk.

The food and the gadgets to feed daddy.

Apparently Wyeth stop producing Enercal. So we had to grab whatever Enercal that is left in the market.

Day 3: Sitting down waiting for the nurse to feed him.

He could talk a little more by Day 3. He could instruct the nurse how much to feed him.

Manual tube feeding.

Daddy told me to snap a photo. I'm assuming that he wants me to snap it so that I could put it up on my blog to show his friends. :)

Day 4: Auto-feed

The dietician decided to use the machine to feed daddy. He gets more this way. The machine would pump in 10cc of Enercal every 15minutes. 

He was talking to Han when I snapped this photo. He could speak normally and we were surprised by his energy level as he kept giving Han advice. Praise the Lord! :)

Day 7: Getting used to tube feeding

Daddy had to change his tube yesterday because the tube slipped out when he was bathing. He made sure that the Dr used the soft silicon tube and also made sure that the nurses knows how to feed him.

Daddy is also on drips with Potassium to help him re-hydrate his blood and kidney.

I'm glad that daddy made progress. His lower abdominal area is still bloated. The Dr told him to be patient. He needs to regain his energy before his body can remove the fluid naturally. Daddy showed some signs of impatience initially but he is much better now. He could read the papers, watch tv, play with his handphone, answer phone calls (when he is comfortable) and he could talk to us with his normal voice. :)

I Thank you Lord for blessing daddy with strength and healing daddy. May you continue to shower him with your Love and the fruits of the spirit. Amen.

Daddy's latest menu

I haven't had time to take much photos of daddy these days.

Our family Dr's sister-in-law introduced an Acupuncturist to us. My mum brought my dad there yesterday. According to the Acupuncturist my dad has a lot of wind in his belly. Also agreed that he is lack of energy & nutrition. So she performed acupuncture on daddy and gave him some chinese herbal medicine & supplement. Her herbal medicine and supplement can be taken together with the western medicine.

Today is daddy's second day taking the herbal remedy. My dad started talking more yesterday. He could also talk to us about life, which is an improvement because he could hardly finish a sentence before he started this herbal remedy.

Daddy's daily food: Herbal Life ShapeWorks & Enercal.

Herbal Life provides the protein and Enercal provides the calories that he needs to rebuild his energy level.

Chinese Herbal Supplement.

My dad didn't find it difficult to swallow this. It's interesting because he finds it very hard to swallow anything even water.

Chinese Herbal Medicine
To be taken 3 times daily, every 4 hours.

He will never walk alone!
Spot that Liverpool logo? :) Daddy look a lot better today.

He is improving day by day even though he doesn't notice it himself. As care takers, we notice his improvement. So we only ask for you to pray for him to continue to be blessed with the strength to overcome this stage.

What will help him?

My dad has been home since last Thursday. Is he better?
If you ask him, he'll say "Nope. It's still there."
If you ask me, "Yes, his abdominal area is smaller."

I'm not saying things just to please/comfort him or anyone that is reading my blog. My family & I and the Dr do think that his abdominal area is getting smaller.

However, as the patient himself, he would probably tell you that he is good only when his stomach is flat. I don't blame him cause he is the one with the pain, not us.

We haven't lost hope in searching for something that might just help him. My mum has been looking out for herbal remedies. My sister & I researching online to see what are the things that my dad can do to make his pain go away. The Drs are helping him. One by motivating him, the other going all out to look for alternative remedies.

One of the things that I find that my dad not doing is doing something to occupy his mind. I asked him "Would you like to do something?"
Then he said "I don't feel like doing what I want to do."
It saddens me that the pain got to him faster that we can save him. So we could only tell him to keep talking to God. That is the only thing that he is doing every day and every time that he feels uncomfortable.

I'm now looking for previous Ascites patients. If there is anyone you know that has had Ascites, could you kindly ask them to share their success story? So that we may be able to convey the message to my dad. To tell him that patience is all he need. And perhaps the success story comes with a remedy that we could use it on my dad.

What else can help him keep his mind off the pain?
We are asking him to read books. Go online. Do what he likes to do at home. (However, his concentration level is not that high at the moment.)

Any suggestions on how we can help my dad?

Heal Me O Lord

My dad is currently having trouble with Ascites. Dr did a CT Scan, X-ray, Blood test for cancer markers & normal blood test- all the results were good.

My dad finds battling ascites tougher than cancer. My only encouragement for him is to pray. Keep praying and lay all his burden on God. I played him a song titled "Heal Me O Lord" yesterday. He fell in love with it. Even asked my sister to sing it when I'm not around. 

Today I heard my dad sing along as the song was played on my Ipod, it truly touched me. I could feel how much he's asking God to heal him, to save him and how much he praise God. He kept singing it til the song ended. 

We are looking for external remedies that could help him remove fluid from his lower abdominal area without having to consume anything. If anyone following my blog knows a solution that we could try, do not hesitate to drop me a comment.

It is painful to see him in such a situation but we have been very strong. At this situation, my dad is still being himself, protective of us. He kept asking whether we are tired, whether we are suffering. I guess his natural instinct is to protect us, so he can't help but think that we are in "pain". So we'll have to reassure him that we are doing good. We have faith in God and him. We know that our hard work will some how be fruitful soon. :)

I believe strongly in the power of prayer. Therefore, I would like to use my blog to ask everyone to pray for my dad.

To everyone reading this, let's pray together tomorrow (14th April 2009) at 3pm, for my dad to be healed, to be blessed with the strength to fight ascites and for him to be blessed with an open heart.

I would like to thank you all in advance for your prayers and love. May God Bless you. 

"Heal daddy O Lord and he will be healed. Save him and he will be saved. Heal daddy O lord and he will be healed. You are the one that he praise."