Living with TB 6: The Final Chapter

Wednesday March 24, 2010. A day to celebrate.

My X-Ray and blood test shown I am totally clear of TB!

From taking 5 different types of medicine with a total of 12 pills daily, I now will be taking 3 types twice a week. The antibiotic that caused my gout attack is no longer needed.

Even though I will be taking 3 types of medicine, the total now is 13 pills!

This is absolutely fine as I am clean!!!

Gout will be a thing of the past soon. I look forward to being able to run and play tennis in the very near future!

I might even take up a new routine, yoga!

I have put on weight, I am back to my normal weight. Which is actually a bit on the heavy side. Have to work on this part so I can be healthy whilst loosing weight!

I lost about 8kg in less than 2 weeks, from approximately 80kg to 72kg. I remember looking at myself and said to myself, "Cool, my stomach is totally flat! Just like when I was at my fittest many, many years ago!".

Unfortunately, I also lost the little bit of muscle mass I have!

My waist went down from 33" to 30". Now it's back to 33".

I would be more than happy if I could get it down to 32"!

Now that I am at 79kg, I better start building back the muscle mass I lost just so I don't resemble a frog:

Big head, no neck, round stomach and skinny legs!

The future is fill with opportunities, hopes and dreams!

I thank God for allowing me to see things differently and how precious life is.

Life is great!

Living with TB 2: At the Hospital

Reached the hospital emergency ward with no more bout of throwing up blood.

The team of medical staff was busy hooking me up to all sorts of equipment and inserting IV and more needles within minutes.

For someone that can't stand the sight of blood and needles, I was doing rather well. At least I did not faint!

My main concern was to stop the bleeding.

All I recalled was I spit (not threw up!) a fair bit of blood from both my mouth and nose quite a few times between being hooked up to machines, poked and pushed to the X-Ray room and back.

The next few hours was the wait to get the test results.

"Pneumonia, virus infection of the lungs, TB (tuberculosis), cancer" I was told by the doctor in-charged of the possible causes.

Pneumonia or virus infection is fine. I remembered saying that to myself as it is not contagious.

Not TB, as I wouldn't want to pass this on to my family members and loved ones.

I have been spending a lot of time both in Penang with my mum, aunt and 2 dogs, visited my in-laws and played with the nieces. As well as Kuala Lumpur with my wife, cousin Joo Lee, her mother and niece. I know TB is curable. But it takes time.

At the same time, I hope it wasn't cancer as I wasn't prepared to deal with that.

I called my mum, told her I went to hospital for X-Ray and was told to be admitted as the hospital needed a few days to make certain what's the cause of my prolonged cough (I wouldn't want to tell her the whole truth as I wouldn't want her to rush down to KL or stressed out in PG. The plan is once I am on the way to recovery, I would dramatize the whole incident! Hee hee.).

2 days later, I was officially diagnosed with TB.

I freaked out! Not so much because I have become a TB patient, but the possibilities that people I have come in contact with the last few weeks/months may have gotten it!

I couldn't forgive myself should this happened. Honestly, I wouldn't be able to deal with this should it be the case!

A week later, feedback was that my family and loved ones tested negative!

To be continued...