Caveat: Hypochondriac Daydreams

After sitting around for a while after getting home from yesterday afternoon's first radiation therapy session, I felt restless. Not energetic, exactly, but it was a kind of impatience. Part of the problem is that I sit there thinking and worrying too much.

"Is that little itch on the side of my neck a symptom of the therapy, or just a little itch on the side of my neck?" … "How about that strange feeling in the side of my mouth?" … "How about that momentary ringing sound in my ears?" These are the bodily "ghosts" and passing sensations that we experience all the time, if we sit and "listen" to our bodies at any time, but now, I have this giant thing to worry about, to wonder how it's affecting me.

It's not to say I'm not experiencing some symptoms. The slight burning sensation on my neck or in my mouth matches what was suggested. But even that, I have to wonder… am I feeling it, in part, because it was suggested? As a long practicing semi-pseudo-meta-hypochondriac (don't ask me what, exactly, I mean by that), this is going to prove a difficult time, I think.

So last night, Andrew and I ran some errands, and stopped in a 김밥천국 [kimbap heaven = Korean fastfood chain] for some 콩국수 [kongguksu = soy milk cold noodle soup with egg and veggies], which I had been craving. Not as good as at a "real" restaurant, but the fast food version satisfies the craving more or less.

We ended up walking a few kilometers, because Andrew wanted to buy a giant fan to compensate for the fact that we may need to get the air conditioning unit repaired in my new apartment. But this being Korea, with the summer season in full swing, giant fans seemed hard to come by. They're all sold out and not restocked, because why would someone wait until now to buy a fan? They'll re-appear next spring, right?

It was funny, because Andrew now seems to have the thankfully short-lived cold that I had last week. The consequence is that he was the one who said, "OK, let's stop walking," rather than me. He remarked that there was some irony that I would be the one to want to keep walking, being the alleged cancer patient.

I slept restlessly, waking up several times.

At one point, I dreamed I was trying interview some military official, but he refused to speak a language I could understand. I kept trying out snippets of different languages, and his language would shift, and become imcomprehensible.

Now it's morning. I have session number two in a few hours. I'll have breakfast and Andrew and I will head over to the hospital.