Two months ago on the 4th of July I had my tumor removed. Piece-of-cake.
This radiation thing, on the other hand… eheh.
But that’s the deal-with-devil I made, I think. 화이팅.
Last week I made a giant batch of pea soup – before what was left of my ability to taste food disappeared over the weekend. I finished off the leftover pea soup for lunch today with some cubes of ham cut into it, and imagined it was delicious.
I just make myself eat, because I know there’s a lot of concern about patients losing weight during radiation, and especially because of the sores in my mouth potentially disrupting my ability to eat solids. So far, I just kind of buckle down and push the food in, chew, swallow. It’s doable.
Talking is just as difficult as eating, now – in that respect, this is quite different from my experience last month with recovering from the tongue-reconstruction surgery, where I recovered the ability to talk almost effortlessly and painlessly, but re-learning to eat and swallow were quite challenging. Now, it’s just that everything is so sore – tongue, inside of cheeks, gums, inside of lips, throat, etc. – that eating and talking are equally difficult and unpleasant. But, as I said, it’s doable.
I took a longish nap, after lunch. I guess I needed it. I always get hit really hard by tiredness around noon on my radiation days. The result was that I didn’t go to work. I guess I could go now, but I had a talk with Curt on Monday about my not going in so much due to how I’ve been feeling about the treatment, and he was OK about it.
I’m not really sure I have the right mental constitution to handle having an entirely “optional” job, though. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I’m just not up for it.”
But then… my friend Seungbae wants to meet this evening for dinner, because it would be his chance to say goodbye to Andrew before Andrew goes back to the US at the end of this week. So that’s another reason to skip work. But I have that same guilty feeling skipping work and going to see a friend in Seoul as I used to get being “sick” from school as kid when in fact I was taking a mental health day of some kind or another.
I’m not sure I’m really going anywhere with all of this. Just rambling on, letting everyone know where things are at.
Document everything! …My life of obfuscating, radical transparency!
Eheh. Whatever.
What I’m listening to right now.
Parov Stelar, “If I Had You.”
Here is a picture of magpie (까치) I tried to capture while walking back from the hospital this morning through the park, with only mediocre success.
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
You had cancer. I had no idea. I wish you said sumfin. Get better, my friend!
I have been reading your posts and feel for you. My mother went through something similar and it is hard to watch but I was determined to do my part in her recovery. I think of you every day my friend.