This is the day the peeps have a meeting on my case. Thus I expect some visitors. First to come is the plastic group. They basically say they can do stuff depending on the mess that is there. They mention the hole that is going to be there and the ways they can fix it up. The hole can be covered by muscle and some bone can be attached as well. The bone may come from the rib or my hip. The muscle from my stomach. I may look like a leper after the surgery and I may require additional surgery. I was thinking that if I go blind, what difference will it make, I won't see it and I won't see people seeing it. But unfortunately my wife will.
Next a cancer nurse/coordinator. She can help bridge the gap between doctor and patient so if you don't understand something or need more info then she can help organise something. Kinda a good thing.
Later a social worker visits regarding my benefits. "You from malaysia?" "Yeah" "I'm from Malaysia". Unbelievable. Quite a number of Malaysians here. We had a talk about my circumstance and suggest what is available. I should go on jobseeker benefits but with jobseeking exemption because I am in hospital. The wife can go on parenting allowance. I mention that I need to call the employment department and have an interview. She says ok, let me check with the other girl. She comes back and tells me I have to call the number and have the interview, they can follow up later. I say I have no money to make the call then she made arrangements to call the department. Ring ring. I gets the call and have the interview. As I expect the usual background checks, asset checks employment checks. Then please go to your nearest Department and have another interview. Lucky they made the call otherwise it would have cost a monster on my mobile, $1 per minute almost and it took over 40 minutes.
I notice my pimples are re-emerging... everywhere.
Then a long wait.
I may move to another ward. At 2pm I move to a 4 bed room. It was little awkward as I was alone now I am among strangers. The initial 'hi' was a little hard to fork out but eventually it happened. The ice is broken.
The nurse then came to take me to the eye clinic to get a perception test. When I got there they say next month. ??? I could be blind next month. Oh well never mind. Later the nurse say thursday.
I was thinking the ENT may come in but later Prof K comes in, the neuro dude. He explains what they are going to do. Cut temple to temple, open the old hatch, remove the brain...oops...tumor. The eye doctor will remove the eye. The ENT will scrape the nasal and remove the stuff behind the nose including bone. The area behind the left eye will also be worked on and may impact on the optic nerve. If the surgery does not blind me the radio therapy after it will.
There you can see the nasty cancer. You see the brain tumor, bigger than before and the mess around my nose into the right eye. This is a radical major operation involving multiple groups. It will take the whole day @10 hours. The risks is therefore higher, 20%. Also the usual risk, brain swelling, infection, bleeding and stroke. My dura will also have a hole and my brain covered by skin. This is BAD. My brain will be susceptible to infection and with the amount of wreckage that they are going to create, I fear that infection may be a complication I may not escape.
I have to make a decision by tomorrow. I dunno. I am too tired to think about. It's like being on the Titanic, no matter where you run the ship is gonna sink. So what do you do, jump in the water, look for a floating wooden door (and kick Rose off) or try the lifeboat. But not all the life boats were rescued, 1 or 2 got lost and all the occupants died before rescue. So better I just do it and get on with thinking about something else.
