31st Oct, AP will have her CT Scan and 8th Nov is her planned surgery. Well planned and definitely in control.
I offered myself to take her to the scan as she said she'll do it herself and I felt bad for her that nobody's around for her on somewhat really scary day. She's single, family is up in Penang and she stays alone by herself in KL. Her father is needed to be cared of, by her brother, she lost her mum few years back on cancer. Since I stay quite a distance away from her, I decided to put up a night at her place the night before. Her appointment was at 8am. Went in to HUKM, registered, admitted into Sutera ward. Went to CT Scan and I went for my breakfast. Got back and didn't find her. Rushed to her ward and found her there. Then nurse came and brought to doctor's consultation room. She went in herself, and I sat by the waiting hall. She came out with that shocked almost breaking down to pieces kind of look and sat beside me, pale blank. She slowly telling me what she had heard. She basically playing out the recorded message from doctor. She said doc said it looked like somewhat advanced stage cancer and that surgery will remove her inner cheek flesh and muscle. On top of that, they might remove half the teeth, mainly the left side, probably some part of her jaw bone and to be replaced with some mould. I was shattered and immediately felt the crush she felt. Holding real hard, both of us, managed to not shed any tears.
She then went for Head and Chest X-Ray, followed by MRI. All and all, I was there for almost 8 hours with her and then I had an impromptu interview session arranged, was kind of expected but didn't fix the time earlier. So I have to leave my friend and off to Puchong, I went. It was a bit of a weird one, as this was directly with the boss of the company, and a job that I did not apply for. I went to his house with some friends on Deepavali day, which was few days earlier and when introduced , I was mentioned that I was in between jobs (was jobless since July due to some really tough period of time with that 9 months job which I felt that I was totally drained and not too keen to look for any job for that moment, just want to have my own me time to cool down, and get back in pace) and this boss said he's hiring. Went to his office, while waiting on, another call came in, it was my brother's friend, S, who was hiring too. I went to his office and sort of had my first interview with him and on that day we were supposed to confirm for then next meeting. Due to the sudden news of AP, I have totally forgotten to give him a call to either confirm this date or reschedule. Then my interview with this Puchong job was from 5pm dragged on to 7pm as I was introduced to his Manager, for another interview session. Called up S and God he was mad that I did not make it to perhaps second interview? Well, we did not confirm any date. Anyway, I was too stressed out with AP's cancer news. Did not bother to follow up on my own future. Never mind, it was not a life and death for my case. I do set priorities sometimes, especially this.
1st Nov morning, AP can be discharged. Again, I offered to pick her. Rushed 40km to hospital, picked her, she was really silent. Answered only a word or two to my questions. I can sensed she was really stressed out. Reaching her place, she told the security that I was only going to drop off. I then asked her, don't you want to talk to me? She ignored. I sensed that she needed her time alone. Respected her, drop her off. Looking at her facial expressions, she looked like she was going to break down into tears. Holding back so dearly, I can see that she wanted to rush down the car, rush to her unit close the door tight, scream aloud and cry to sleep. Off I went.
8th Nov - AP's surgery day. It was scheduled for 1pm and I planned to leave home at 10am, in order to not stuck in the morning working traffic. I received a call from AP at 9.30am, saying that her surgery will be started in 30 minutes time, asking if I am able to reach earlier, I was supposed to hold on to her belongings. It was pushed forward due to the sudden extended hours for her surgery. I told her unlikely, but I did rush out. Reaching only at 10.15am, after parked, was at the Operation theatre at almost 10.30am. She was just pushed in then. Didn't manage to see her. I was worried sick. One crazy day for me. I couldn't bear not getting the update of her. Her surgery will end only at around 7pm and the visiting hour for ICU ended at 7.30pm, thus I didn't drive up again, expecting that she will be drowsy with anaesthetic and that she needed rest too. Yet, I could not sleep having not known how her surgery went. Sent a message in FB to her cousin, whom I was only guessing out from her contact list, turned out to be the correct person to reach. She replied that AP op was done and she was half awake when they visited her at 8pm. Man I was so relieved to hear that. I was overly concerned and had crazy thoughts.
9th Nov - went to visit AP. As soon as I saw her, she looked half awake, not too alert and she looked exactly like the person I googled for Oral cancer (http://hapshaw.com/thelife/?category_name=my-cancer&paged=21) - NOTE: Please DO NOT go beyond his red Warning for faint hearted. I kind of expecting the same surgery on AP, and when I see her looking exactly like the male patient, I could not help as my tears came flowing and worst, AP saw me wiping away my tears.
I was shocked seeing her. She looked as though she lost her left jaw and surgeon did not replace them? Her oncologist said they were out of time when they removed the tumour, it covered most of the muscles and flesh. Therefore a quick decision was made, to remove the whole patch of inner cheek and did not replaced with tissue from arm, where it will take even longer hours, so they just stitched up the opening. Most likely the whole operation took too long hours and it was not to the benefit of AP to drag any longer. Five of her back teeth were removed too. Upon checking, there were no sign of cancer cells on her jaw, so it was saved. I only found out much later, (probably after about a month) that 3 of her lymph nodes on the left were removed too.
11th Nov - 11.11.11, I did something I never thought I would have done. I promised to help AP wash her hair. Since surgery, she can only managed to clean her body and probably wipe her hair a little bit. She could not wash her hair as she should not get her stitches wet, especially her clippers stitches at below her ear, where they were really close to her hair, it was a difficult task. We took awhile to figure out how to wash sitting up on a chair, leaning on a padded cushion chair. I cannot wash down the water. I probably can do washing like how saloon does it, but impossible to rinse. AP could not move much of her neck due to the cut over her neck, she kind of need to be in place, as not to stretch the cut. I did wet her hair by squeezing some water on her hair, massage in shampoo, then can only soak her hair, bit by bit and wipe off the scalp with damp cloth. Took more than hour for that and it was still not too clean, but at least got the hair loosen up a bit from the drying blood from her surgery.
12-16th Nov - I went holiday in Medan & Lake Toba
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