Category: Banalities & Journaling

at hospital. . going in for first radiation. see you later.

That sore throat I woke up with the other morning has progressed into a full-blown head-cold: runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc. Andrew is a bit worried about it, and I recognize that it is a bit taxing on my immune system so shortly before the start of the radiation.

But I find the whole thing oddly reassuring. It's like the world is telling me: "you're still just a regular guy, you get to get colds because you work with children, so deal with it."

The Cancer isn't a special superpower, it's not an exemption from regular life, it's just something I've had to deal with.

Does that make any sense?

And my thinking is, it's better to have the cold this week, during my "between-horrible-treatments holiday," than next week or the week after that, when I'm doing  the radiation and my immune system is weakened. If this is a normal cold, I'll have worked through it before things start next week. If it's not, or if it's persistent, well, the doctors will recognize that and can make a judgement about whether or not to postpone the start of radiation, if it merits that.

In other words, I don't feel worried by it – just annoyed by it, the way having a cold is always a bit annoying.

I've taken it as a signal to back off my "10 kilometers a day" commitment to adventure. I'll let Andrew explore on his own, and just focus on doing whatever work has for me and relaxing and resting the rest of the time. I am reading almost 10 different books-in-progress now. It's time to actually start finishing one. Heh.

To return to one other point: frequent colds are an automatic part of teaching kids, in my experience. Having received a dozen "oh teacher I miss you!" hugs from second and third graders over the past week, if something was floating around it's inevitable it will glom onto me in my weakened state. Frankly, the hugs were worth it.

I should post a health update.

Yesterday I visited Dr Ryu at the clinic before going to work. The infection that has been so problematic in my neck appears largely to have cleared up, but due to scheduling issues and wanting to be sure of everything, I will start the radiation next week (Monday, August 12).

I must admit I have apprehensions about starting radiation – who wouldn’t. They make you contemplate a truly horrific list of possible complications and side effects: OMG radiation causes cancer! blindness! death!

You have to sign that list.

Well, I’m trying to stay positive. Sticking to the percentages. I survived the surgery swimmingly, where the percentages were much worse than the list of percentages on the radiation. So everything should be just fine, right?

But it’s hard to stay positive, sometimes.

I’m going to try to really enjoy this week of “pure healthiness,” such as it is. I’m definitely healthier than when I had that tumor – despite my various disfigurements (neck, wrist, thigh) I feel healthier and more vital than I have in maybe a year. It’s become clear to me, over the past month, how much that tumor was
grinding down my health and sense of well-being long before I was aware what it was or what it was doing.

I will survive this.

At right is an image found online of an immobilization apparatus in use that is very similar to the one I was “fitted” with two weeks ago, what will be used for my therapy. The plastic webbing over the face is essentially rigid, but custom-moulded to the contours of the head. In my set, there is a second set of webbing that goes down over my upper torso and neck, and then there is an insert that goes into my mouth, a bit like an orthodontic retainer but serving to immobilize my jaw and tongue.

Today is the one-month "anniversary" of my massive surgery, which was on July 4th. The tumor was removed, and so far no metastasis.

That means by the logic of our gregorian calendar, this day Sunday, August 4th, is the mensiversary (a real word) of my cancer-freedom. I have always had a strange fascination for the calendrical recyclings of dates and numbers, and I suspect this monthiversary (another real word, but much more etymologically abominable) will henceforth hold a deep meaning for me.

To celebrate, I woke up, ate nurungji and a large, fat Korean plum and coffee for breakfast, and stared at the internet for half an hour.

I’m going to be honest: it’s really pretty gross.

Don’t scroll down and don’t read this post if you are easily grossed out. This is about my wrist, which was the “donor” spot for the material that was used to reconstruct my tongue after the tumor was removed.

The irony, of course, is that a major portion of that tongue reconstruction was lost due to the infection I suffered post-surgery in the hospital. The fact that I have retained a fully functional if somewhat truncated tongue is mostly attributable to my obstinacy and linguistic obsession, so-to-speak. At least one portion of the reconstruction I literally swallowed one day, hardly noticing it, after the second surgery cut it off and left it like a hanging useless bit with nothing to do. I think of my original forearm-sourced donor flesh, only about 10% remains at the root of my tongue – unless I have misunderstood the doctors.

Those same doctors insist, however, that the transplantation, though not entirely successful, was still utterly necessary – as it gave my tongue a critical period when I could “retrain” it to stay straight and forward-pointed in my mouth. Otherwise, it may have healed curled into a knot at the back of my mouth and I would have lost a major portion of my function. I’m inclined to give the whole thing the benefit of the doubt, but recovering my forearm functionality is now a major obsession of mine.

My wrist seems to be healing well, though. Last night, I slept with no bandage on it, for the first time. I woke up with a sprinkling of scab-detritus around me but the wound itself remained solidly closed and fine. I’ve had no infection problems whatsoever at the wrist spot, and it causes only minor discomfort, more due to the severed nerves than due to any actual pain.

But looking at it is difficult. I may never feel entirely comfortable with it out in public – as Andrew remarked while I was still in the hospital, it looks like a small but vicious sharkbite scar.

Frankly, I think it looks like I received an implant made of Canadian bacon in my wrist, that was then crafted through clever scarification to look like a helium balloon floating away in the air. When I look at it, I think of ham.

I slept a solid, uninterrupted 8 hour night. First time since diagnosis.

'Nuff said.