For the past few months, I have been having some issues with breathing. Often time I need to stop and catch my breath when I was walking down the street, or going upstair to my room. My cough is getting worse, and sometime I cannot even complete some simple tasks because I feel light headed.

My next scheduled appointment is in 2 weeks, I will have x-ray and blood test then, hopefully it will tell me what is going on, whether my chemo working or not or we need to try something new.    

On Wednesday (14th April), my white blood cell count is low again so I will not be able to take Gemcitabine. I will need to wait for another 3 weeks (5th May) for my 3 cycles.

This is like the third time already, I asked the doctor whether I should take G-CSF injection like last time and he suggested I should wait until the next chemo and see how my blood work goes. However, I don't think I will wait this long. I will probably consult another doctor 1 week before the scheduled chemo, have my blood work tested and see whether I really need G-CSF or not.

My white blood cell count finally high enough for me to take chemo on Wednesday, and the side effect start kicking into full gear last night. Nausea, tired, fever. But last night it was rather tough.

I woke up at 3am, cough and then rushed into the toilet and start vomit for like 2mins. I was even having difficulty breathing because of all the acid taste in my mouth. The fever ( highest at 38.4) and chill in the body kept me awake the whole night.

By Friday night things are getting a bit better.  I took some sleeping pill earlier so hopefully it will let me sleep better tonight.

During this process, I sometime curse out word like "com'on, i know i can fucking do it" when i stucked my head into the toilet, hoping the vomit will stop, or trying to do better even thou my body is incapable sometime.

Today (31st March) was suppose to be my 2nd chemo session, but my white blood cell count is still too low. Doctor suggested I take G-CSF injection and try again next week.

This is the second time already and I am little bit frustrated by it. I felt that after the radiotherapy last November my body became much weaker than before. I hope things will improve soon.

Well, this is a first.

I had 2 rounds of chemo ( 6 sessions for each round ) before and every time when I went back for blood work before the Chemo, everything were fine... until now.

My 3rd round of chemo is sightly different than my previous one. All my previous round require me to have single injection every 21 days ( 3 weeks ). But this round of Chemo require me to have 2 injection in the same 21 days period: day 1 and day 8. Today is day 8 for my second injection. But my white blood cell count is too low so I cannot have Chemo. They will try to reduce my dosage next time ( 31st March ) and see if there are any improvement.

In another news, my FoundationOne blood test did not discover any useful Biomarker for target therapy. So I will continue Chemo for the foreseeable future.

GemCarbo is the drug combo I am currently using for my chemo.

• Gem – Gemcitabine
• Carbo – Carboplatin

I had Carboplatin before and kind of know what to expected, but Gemcitabine took me a little bit off guard. I had some low grade fever today (38.1), nausea, tired, headache... etc. Generally just feel pretty shitty for the whole day. It was not until close to end of day I start to feel normal again. This is only my first session.. and I have 5 more to go (well, 5.5 because next Wednesday I will have Gemcitabine only, then will need to wait for 2 weeks before I go back to Carboplatin+Gemcitabine)

This will be tough few months go through.

In Episode Eight of WandaVision, when Wanda discussing her mourning the death of her brother:

Wanda: It's just like this wave washing over me again and again. It knocks me down and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can't... It's gonna drown me.

Vision: No. No, Wanda

Wanda: How do you know?

Vision: Because it can't be all sorrow, can it? I've always been alone so I don't feel the lack. It's all I've ever known. I've never experienced loss because I've never had a loved one to lose. What is grief, if not love persevering?

Last week I had my 5th Chemo session on Tuesday (15th Oct). It went through the usual process: nauseous, tired, low-grade fever... etc. During this period, I found that I often cursed at myself, like a frustrated old man who is slowly losing control his body and cannot perform the task that he normally can. Lucky, the worst part only last few days. By Sunday, everything back to normal (almost) and I can eat normally again.

I also got the PET/CT scan report last week, it shown that my tumor is smaller, and my chemo has "moderate" effect on it. I guess that means good news? I have no idea, or may be deep down I don't want to interpret it as good news yet because I don't want to be disappointed later.

But in any case, my 6th Chemo session will be in mid Nov, and that will conclude my first round of chemo. I will need to wait for the doctor to determine what will be my next course of treatment then.

This blog is powered by Ghost, a much cleaner, simpler solution when compare to other like WordPress. Here is a quick guide on how to setup NGINX, MySQL and Ghost on Ubuntu:

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NGINX

Installing NGINX is relatively simple, just type the following command:

$ sudo apt install nginx

After it is done, the web server should be running on port 80. Then you will need to update your DNS and configure NGINX. I simple NGINX configuration should look something like this:

server {
     listen 80;
     listen [::]:80;
     server_name ocean.hk www.ocean.hk;
     root /var/www/ocean.hk/html;
     index index.html index.htm;
}

But wait, you probably also want to enable HTTPS on your website. With Let's Encrypt, you can apply, install and auto renew your SSL certificate by using very simple command.

First you will need to install Certbot by adding the certbot PPA to your apt repository:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
$ sudo add-apt-repository universe
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
$ sudo apt-get update

Then run the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install certbot python-certbot-nginx

After this is done, you can then run the certbot command to install the certificate on your domain:

$ sudo certbot --nginx

Certbot should automatically detect your domain configuration, setup the certificate and update your NGINX configuration to support HTTPS. It should also setup a schedule job to renew the certificate when needed. You can view the schedule job by typing the following command:

$ sudo systemctl list-timers

You should be able to see the certbot.timer in the list.

MySQL

Ghost officially support MySQL 5.x. You can get MySQL 8 working with Ghost but will need to change the authentication plugin. This is not really a Ghost issue, but an issue with NodeJS MySQL driver.

Check to make sure you have the correct MySQL version available through your package manager, and then install with the following command:

$ sudo apt install mysql-server

After this is done, you can then run the secure installation script to complete the installation:

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Depends on your configuration/installation, you may find that you are unable to login to MySQL as root UNLESS you use sudo or login as root in this session already. This is because MySQL may be using auth_socket plugin for root user. You can fix this by typing the following command:

$ sudo mysql -u root
mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'yourpassword';

After that, you should be able to login as MySQL root from normal user

NodeJS

Before you can install Ghost, you will need to install NodeJS first. You can use the following command to install NodeJS 10.x:

$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Ghost

Finally, we can install Ghost by execute the following command:

$ sudo npm install ghost-cli@latest -g

Before you execute the ghost command, please create a directory where you will host your ghost installation first. I will suggest a place like: /var/www/<domain>/ghost. Please also make sure you do not run the ghost command as root. After you created the directory, execute the following command in that directory:

$ ghost install

You will need to answer few questions. Few points to note:

• If you input MySQL root username/password, it will automatically create ghost Database and a new user to access the database. It will not use the MySQL root user to access the DB.
• I will recommend you answer "no" on both NGINX and SSL setup as you already complete those setup in previous steps.
• I will recommend you use systemd to keep ghost up and running. Alternatively you can also use other process manager like pm2, but that will require manual setup

After ghost CLI complete the installation, you can then setup NGINX. Open your domain configuration and add the following:

location / {
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:2368;
}

client_max_body_size 50m;

Restart/Reload NGINX and you are done. You can now go to https://<domain>/ghost and follow the instruction to setup ghost configuration.

Yesterday I had my second PET/CT scan to determine whether Chemo is working or not. This will be my first report card after 4 rounds of Chemo.

I honestly don't know what to expect. I want to believe the Chemo is working, that the past few months of suffering was not in vain. But I have been trying to keep my expectation low to avoid any potential disappointment.

Death is the common denominator of all living being. I know that someday I would die, but I don't know when. Whether I have cancer or not, this remaining unchanged. Death may be unsettling, but there are no other way to live.

tmux is one of my favourite terminal multiplexer, it enables number of terminals to be access via a single connection.

tmux/tmux

tmux source code. Contribute to tmux/tmux development by creating an account on GitHub.

tmuxGitHub

Unfortunately most package manager has an older version of tmux, and some of the features I like only available in the latest version of tmux, so we will need to build tmux in source. Here are the steps required:

First add all the build tools and the libraries it required:

$ sudo apt install -y build-essential
$ sudo apt install -y libevent-dev
$ sudo apt install -y libncurses5-dev

Then you need to download the source from tmux release page. I am currently using 2.9. After you download it, you can then configure and build:

$ ./configure && make
$ sudo make install

If everything goes well, then you should have access to the latest version of tmux.

But wait, this is not the end. While tmux is nice, the default configuration is rather limited and require you to learn a lots of custom command for very simple things like scrolling back history, select text for copy'n'paste.. etc. Enter On My Tmux. This configuration template support mouse scroll back history, mouse resize pane, mouse select pane, automatically select text... etc. Highly recommend you check it out if you are using tmux.  

Yes, I decided to start blogging again. But I guess this time is slightly different.

In June 2019, I was diagnose with Stage 4 Lung Cancer. As a non-smoker, at age 44, I was devastated when I received the news. But over the past few months, I have come to accept the fact, and life must go on.

I recently read a book called "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with Lung Cancer at age 35. It is an amazing book, and I will recommend you to read it when you have time. I will probably talk more about this book and what it mean for me in later days. But for now, I will leave you a quote from the book, his words for his daughter:

That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

- Paul Kalanithi
When Breathing Becomes Air