Day 719 New York January 3, 2009 - 21.00 hrs

Already three days into the new year.
I received the sad news of the death of my younger brother on the morning of Jan 2. I felt very sad. God has His way. My brother was sick and could not move on his own. I went to mass today to pray for him.

The good news is that we are spending some very good moments with Bert, Nicolas and Greg in New York. We are taking it easy. I had a great time with Nicolas over lunch yesterday.
It is easy to live in New York as we have all the organic and fresh food that Nicole needs for her diet.

Day 716 New York Dec 31, 2008 - 11.25 hrs

The last day of 2008. It has been quite a year. We thank God for all His blessings. Indeed we have had plenty. Nicole's surgery was a miracle. Her long period of remission was another one. But more importance was the immense show of love and support by so many persons. We thank God for His Love made tangible through so many persons.

We welcome 2009 with peace and trust in the Lord. We look forward to live fully every moment of 2009.
Happy new year.

Day 712 New York Dec 27, 2008 - 20.58 hrs

We are looking at the alternative treatment of hyperthermia - which is the treatment of cancer with heat. One of our friends sent us some information on hyperthermia. I did some search on Google and came across a private hospital in Germany that provides this treatment. Through another friend, I was able to talk to someone in Germany who has worked in an oncology department at a hospital in Berlin where the hospital uses hyperthermia with chemo.
It appears that the heat changes the composition of cancer cells and make cancer cells more vulnerable to chemo. The immune system is able to destroy cancer cells that have been weakened by the heat treatment.
Meanwhile, Nicole is following the protocol of Dr Gonzalez. The latter has increased the amount of pancreatic enzymes to 18 per dose. At the end of this 20 days cycle, Nicole is having another blood test to see if there has been a decrease in the CA marker reading. The test is on January 11.
We are planning to travel to Germany for the hyperthermia treatment in January. The treatment is for two weeks.
We continue to pray. We try to live a normal life - living the now. I value every moment spent together. I now realize the importance of our life journey itself. It is the journey that counts, not the destination. It is what happens during the journey that enriches life experience. Sometimes we find ourselves so focussed on the destination that we do not pay attention to what happens during the journey.

Day 710 New York December 25. 2008 - 19.12 hrs

Christ is born! What a great gift from God the Father! We went to Christmas mass. At mass, I thanked the Lord for His blessings during 2008 and for giving us this joy of spending this Christmas with all the children, Erin and Nina. After mass we had our traditional lunch. The photo was taken before we had lunch.

Day 705 New York December 20, 2008 17.13 hrs

We are in New York since Dec 18.
It is indeed a great privilege to be able to see Bert, Nicolas, Erin and Nina. We had moments of great joy yesterday when Nicolas, Erin and Nina visited us. Popo Nicole was so happy. These were precious moments that we enjoyed together.
We also had a nice time at dinner with Bert.
Today we again had Nicolas and his family with us.
It has snowed in New York. We stayed home enjoying the time spent together.

I am so happy to see Nicole relaxed and enjoying Nina's presence. She has been very worried and apprehensive of the future. It is not easy to live knowing that the cancer cells might be getting the upper hand over one's immune system.
I told her to have faith in our Lord. We pray that He heals her. He said that if you believe that you have already got what you are going to ask in your prayer, then you will get it.
Nicole is asking for your prayers - you who are reading this blog. We do believe in the power of prayers.
Meanwhile we try as much as we can to live the present. To live life fully, one has to live the present moment. Cardinal Margeot always says: "The past cannot be undone, the future does not belong to us, live the present. "

Day 699 Singapore December 14th, 2008 - 22.51 hrs

No news from Dr Gonzalez as he has been traveling. We hope to talk to him on Monday morning New York time.
Meanwhile, it has not been an easy time for us. We were so shocked by the news - though now thinking about it - we ought not. Cancer is a disease that can be present but not seen. Nicole has been making good progress since her surgery in February. However, when she started with a cold some one month ago, she knew that her immune system has weakened. This was confirmed by the result of the blood test. The CA markers were up. Now the Ct scan confirmed the presence of new cancer activities.
Option:(1) Dr Karmen Wong recommends chemo - hopefully this will keep the cancer progression in check. No cure. Just buying some more time. Drawback: this will weaken Nicole's immune system.
(2) No chemo, continue the treatment of Dr. Gonzalez. However, this time we are more uncertain. The treatment could not stop the growth of the tumor last time.
Of course, there is a third option, which is a combination of (1) and (2).
We are very disappointed with this new development. But today Nicole's spirit was high and we had a good day.
It is now becoming so important to both of us to cherish the precious time we have and are together. We are on a new road in our life journey.

Day 697 - Singapore December 12, 2008 - 14.23 hrs

As planned Nicole had a CT scan done yesterday. We got the results today. The scan shows that three nodules are growing - one with 2.4cm and 1.6 cm and the second is bigger 2.3cm by 2.3 cm and a small one of 0.3 cm. These are new compared to the scan done on September 24.

This confirms the apprehension we had as Nicole has not been feeling well. We had the blood test last month which showed an increased in the cancer markers. Now this confirms that there are cancer cells activities.

We, of course, are very disappointed and sad. However, Nicole is in a fighting mood. She is reading again the protocol prescribed by Dr Gonzalez and will try to adhere more strictly to it. We found out that we were not doing her juicing properly. We have lately been adding lemon juice to her carrot juicing. Lemon juice apparently destroys all the good enzymes of the carrot juice.

Of course, Dr Karmen Wong is recommending chemo therapy; to start next year. We need to think through before we take a decision.

We shall be consulting Dr Gonzalez.