Study Hard...

Everyday I'm studying...

With Hope

Miss you dad. No more sickness, no more sorrow, no more pain - just endless worship, surrounded by the majesty and glory of Jesus Christ. No goodbyes, just see you later...

"Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." 1 Thes 4:13-14

Living By Prayer

"O God of the open ear,

Teach me to live by prayer
as well as by providence,
for myself, soul, body, children, family, church;

Give me a heart frameable to thy will;
so might I live in prayer,
and honour thee,
being kept from evil, known and unknown.
Help me to see the sin that accompanies all I do,
and the good I can distil from everything.

Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring my will to thine,
and that without this t is folly to pray;
When I try to bring thy will to mine it is to command Christ,
to be above him, and wiser than he: this is my sin and pride.

I can only succeed when I pray
according to thy precept and promise,
and to be done with as it pleases thee,
according to thy sovereign will.

When thou commandest me to pray
for pardon, peace, brokenness,
it is because thou wilt give me the thing promised,
for thy glory,
as well as for my good.

Help me not only to desire small things
but with holy boldness to desire great things
for thy people, for myself,
that they and I might live to show thy glory.

Teach me
that it is wisdom for me to pray for all I have,
out of love, willingly, not of necessity;
that I may come to thee at any time,
to lay open my needs acceptably to thee;
that my great sin lies in my not keeping
the savour of thy ways;
that the remembrance of this truth is one way
to the sense of thy presence;
that there is no wrath like the wrath of being
governed by my own lusts for my own ends."

- from the Valley of Vision

Love Came Down

"I remind myself of all that you've done
and the life I have because of your Son..."

Chemo

Major chemo side-effects GO!

IFOS - hemorrhagic cystitis, SIADH, peripheral neuropathy
ETOP - postural hypotension, anaphylaxis, N/V/D, stomatitis
CPM - hemorrhagic cystitis, N/V, alopecia, SIADH
VCR - jaw pain, constipation, peripheral neuropathy
Doxo - cardiotoxic, mucositis, N/V, hyperpigmentation
Irinotecan - N/V/D, myelosuppression
Dact - skin photosensitivity, hyperpigmentation, hepatotoxic, cardiotoxic
Cisplatin - hypomagnesemia, ototoxic, nephrotoxic
Ara-C - high fevers, anaphylaxis, myelosuppression

The Butterfly Circus

A beautiful short film on hope

BP Spills Coffee

Lols. Thanks for the Friday afternoon laughs Wob Tsang.

TACE

I've been sitting here reading through articles on benign soft-tissue neoplasms with hopes that I can add one of them to my differential of rhabdomyosarcoma for this boy that just came in yesterday with a completely asymptomatic lump. His biopsy is tomorrow and PET/CT is next week so we'll know by then what he's got...

TACE stands for transcatheter arterial chemoembolization. I'm looking after another young boy with a hepatoblastoma who received a portion of his chemotherapy via TACE. It is most often used in adults for hepatocellular carcinoma but we're hoping that it will have similar success in a pediatric population to allow for surgical resection. Combined with adjuvant chemotherapy, the survival rates following complete resection are as high as 89%.



I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked me if I found all this cancer stuff interesting. I told him that I did. He said he found it absolutely terrible hearing about all these kids suffering. It got me thinking. So far I've been absolutely fascinated by all the new things I'm learning in oncology that I haven't stopped to think how some people think this is all terrible while I'm finding it...terribly interesting? Have I become some sick, heartless robot?

I don't know why I watched this next video. It was the top hit when I typed 'hepatoblastoma' into YouTube. I think this girl resembles almost all of the kids that are seen on the oncology ward. They're all cute, they're all beautiful and they've all got cancer. I realize I'm not a robot and I just try really really hard not to think about what will happen to this boy if the TACE doesn't work.

Ctrl+C?

Song writing is an art. Some people are better at it than others. How does one decide if a song is better than another? Does the beauty lie in the ears of the beholder?

Anyway, I was listening to some John Butler Trio the other day because a friend mentioned him to me. Then I was listening to some Dave Matthews Band, one of my favorite groups because of their diverse technical playing (although I'm not really a big fan of his vocals). Love the mix of guitar/drums/bass/sax and their drummer, Carter Beauford, is insanely talented. Anyway, I came across two of their songs that sound very similar. 'Big Eyed Fish' by DCB and 'What You Want' by John Butler Trio. Yes, I know they're not exactly the same...

And yes, I know you can find thousands of similar sounding songs out there that use the same riffs...just look at most of the songs we sing in church - not exactly the most diverse assortment of music available out there. I wonder if it's purposely done to avoid the music becoming a distraction and taking away the focus from God? I often find myself turning to secular bands or artists for my everyday listening because of the paucity of music diversity in praise & worship music. Is this a bad thing? Shouldn't everything we do be aimed to give glory to God?

Hmm...

Wan-Goh-Wah

My Cantonese is about to improve immensely over the next few months - at least the verbal comprehension part of it - as I live with an older Chinese couple. They can understand my English but sometimes they just speak Cantonese to me and I pretend that I understand what they're saying. I would rate my Cantonese speech and language development at a 3 year old level. In situations like these I'm glad I have my charades skills to fall back on. Wikipedia states that 52% of people here in Wan-Goh-Wah are ESL which puts me in a minority group for language.

The second leg of my flight was unremarkable. I sat next to an old guy who slept most of the flight and snored loudly. At least he didn't have that "old person" smell. Combined with the rattling of the plane (I thought the wing was going to break off mid-flight with the amount of noise that was coming from it) and the two very unhappy babies that happened to be in my section, it was a pretty noisy 11 hrs. Lucky for me I can sleep through a hurricane if I'm tired enough. I watched Shutter Island and only managed to get through 60% of Invictus before passing out. Probably the most disappointing part of the flight was when the flight attendant gave me the Asian breakfast despite me saying, "I'll have the omelette please" in my perfect Canadian English. I still ate it but I would much rather have had the eggs/hash brown/muffin over the watery congee/pork-floss/salty 'n spicy-cabbage-salad-thing/hard boiled salty egg.

I must have looked real suss in the airport because I was approached on 3 separate occasions by the customs/police officers. It's probably because I was traveling alone and hauling 50+ kg of stuff into the country. None of them knew what abalone was.

I've pretty much unpacked and settled in. Met up with "Ocho" Ang for lunch that included sweet potato fries. I think I might go with him and visit the Evangelical Chinese Bible Church in Burnaby tomorrow morning. I had a look at their 'Statement of Doctrine' and it appears to be okay. I'll probably hitch a ride tomorrow. Not sure how easy it is to get to by bus so that may influence my decision of whether to continue attending.

Hoping things warm up here because it's a lot colder than Brisbane despite it being close to summer here... I'm really starting to love Brisbane's year-round-shorts weather.