4. Life is getting Unbearably Tough in 2013

The walking aids that I mentioned in my last post are only to help me walk around inside my garden.. To go out I need a wheel chair.. My relative L who is in charge in a charity nursing home, very helpfully ordered one for me and asked to have it urgently delivered. As a result I could quickly try it out. And my good friend
C could soon take me for drives around Singapore with the wheelchair collapsed and placed in the car boot. ... To help me do some more exercises at home, this helpful relative L lend me a manual paddle-wheel machine for exercising my legs and my arms. ...But even with this exercise aid, the amount of my exercise is minimal. My bowel movements are getting difficult and sometimes less frequent. ...To get myself out of such constipation, at first I used the anal insertion method I used during my own childhood days. This method is of course rather uncomfortable...  Subsequently I asked a nursing homes for the method they use for their residents as these resident nearly all do not have much exercise. ..It uses a sweetened medicine syrup which proved to be a better method. ....

Another problem I faced is worsening very fast... Every two weeks this gets worse. ..This problem has to do with my walking mobility while at home. At first when at home down-stairs I could walk around safely as the floor is level except outside the toilet/bathroom which has to lowered than the rest. Then I notice I have to use a walking stick or cane as I cannot maneuver around low obstacles like floor cushions or low shelves. To help me walk safely, this helpful relative L lends me a walking aid that is like a U-shaped frame with four legs, two on my left, and two on my right. Unfortunately this walking aid makes my walking very slow. My mobility has to slow down very much.....

.. Around this time, I was already thinking about doing a brain surgery which I stubbornly refused to do 15 years ago, although I had my reasons for doing this.at that time... The symptoms then were relatively mild and did not badly affect my lifestyle... As my leg balancing is now getting worse very fast I began to start Google searching and to ask around both locally among friends and in my epidermoid benign tumor Forum ....
. The worst problem from the symptoms that I face so far is when I have to be home-alone for long time periods. Once when I was home-alone upstairs I had to answer the door bell of an important visitor. I had to walk slowly and carefully downstairs to open the front door... By then the visitor had gone away... In general when home alone I had to struggle if I have to work in the kitchen to heat up and and serve my own meal in the dining room as this work typically involves moving and turning left and right, squatting down and standing up while holding something breakable... While these movements are nothing unusual for normal people, they are a struggle for me in my unbalanced leg condition.....  This is the last straw,.. I must do something about these worst problems..... The first action I took is to look for and employ a caregiver, in addition to my domestic helper V who is already fully loaded with my household work. ..Caregivers in the Philippines have to be specially trained for six months to look after people with some disability. Ideally this caregiver is also a full time domestic or live-in worker.... My Philippine domestic helper V has arranged to bring over two of her nephews J and M with this special training to work in nursing homes in Singapore... I talked to both of them... For different reasons, both cannot change to work for me... But one of them has a female classmate in his caregiver class who asked to come and work in Singapore... On knowing that he thinks she is good and he is willing to recommend her, I quickly ask my domestic work-permit agent P to arrange to bring her to Singapore .. Unfortunately this arrangement also cannot work out ...
 The second action I took is to make an appointment to see a brain surgeon... He is , Dr W, at the large reputable Singapore government training hospital called National Neuroscience Institute (NNI).. I have now seen Dr W.  I showed him my 2010 MRI CD and answered a number of his questions...  He then proceeded to book for me a new MRI scan...  I have now done this scan and I am going to see him again on 2 Sept, 2013 to listen to his opinion of my scan results.. .
Dr W may not be the most suitable surgeon to operate on me. But as NNI is a government training hospital, the are not very competitive among themselves and they do look around and refer to a more suitable colleague specialists. ...

 There is one more unbearable problem which MAY NOT be due to symptoms from my brain tumor. I have very bad urinary incontinence. Very often I cannot hold back my urine and wet my shorts or trousers. This is embarrassing. ..What make this worse is that I now have to walk slowly...  When I was going to do an MRI scan, I have to stay very still inside the noisy MRI tunnel for half to one hour...  During the duration of the scan, to deal with my urinary incontinence, I decided to wear an underwear brief fitted with an absorbent pamper...  This was actually not necessary in this case. ..But I still decided to wear this just in case I cannot hold. ....Sigh !

On 2 Sept 2013, I went back to see Dr W to wait for his opinion of my new scan result.  To me the most important words he spoke was that he recommends NO OPERATION for me... The risk of complication is too high... For this type of brain operation, complication means paralyses, coma or death. !!