Category: Cancer

for some reason i was moving too slowly this morning, despite waking up at my regular time, which is around 630. so i ended up feeling rushed and late getting to my 9 am appointment. so arrived less calm than usual. . stressed and frustrated. i started coughing as i was about to strap down.

it was difficult to relax and stay still. . most difficult session so far, and i feel really desequilibriated and grumpy. . splitting headache, postnasal drip with painfully dry mouth at the same time.

waiting to see dr jo (radiotherepy specialist) for thursday consult.

i saw a man walking on the street yesterday with an iv cart. . carrying it rather than rolling it, due to some rough pavement. he looked like a pole vaulter, but he was smoking a cigarette. i dont think patients trudling their iv stands around outdoors is so common in the US, but it strikes me as more common here. . certainly, due to my own recent experience, i notice it more, especially near hospitals.

one thing im glad for, during this radiation treatment, is that i dont have be constantly injected with stuff.

now number seven.

what if the main and most notable side effect of the radiation treatment was a generalized, unfocused grumpiness?

ive been feeling that feeling a lot lately. i suppose its connected to a correspondingly generalized, unfocused feeling of being "under the weather." but as i attempt to travel a day trip to ganghwa with my brother and hollye, i cant help but be conscious of how short my temper is, and how easily i succumb to feelings of frustration or annoyance.

why is it easier to find equanimity in a hospital in a radiation machine than it is on a bus with andrew? that doesnt seem logical.

I woke up this morning with a very vaguely nauseated feeling. Probably something I wouldn't have even noticed, normally, or something I would have associated with feeling a bit tired or just unmotivated to eat breakfast as sometimes happens. But currently undergoing radiation treatment, it's natural to want to read more into it. I quickly magnified it into all kinds of half-hypochondrical fantasies, and found it hard to eat breakfast. I texted to Andrew and let him know that I was deciding not to try to do an overnight adventure this weekend, as we had somewhat discussed and half-planned.

Walking to work, however, the nauseated feeling seemed to fade.

Later, at work, I felt that way again, however. Not bad, just sort of a background feeling of wooziness. Teaching was effortful – lecturing for a full hour with a dry mouth proved a bit of a challange, but I solved it by keeping a cup of water handy. And actually, both my classes today felt very successful and I was happy with them.

After work, I went over to my "old" apartment, where Andrew and Hollye are staying, and had a lunch of a very large and diverse salad, of the sort almost impossible to find in Korea except at higher end, very westernized restaurants maybe – the sort of restaurant I rarely frequent, anyway. I almost never make such salads for myself, because making salads for oneself always seems to lead to a lot of wastage of vegetables over the longer term. So it was good to have it, and delicious.

Then I packed up a suitcase and rolled it over to my "new" apartment, and here I am, posting to this here blog thingy. It's been a long break between updates – almost 24 hours, which, in recent times, I don't generally let happen.

I'm feeling far from the top of my game, but I'm hanging in there. More later.

its a bit as if im lying on an altar, encased in a suit of plastic, my eyes and mouth sealed closed, and then these hightech priests sprinkled highenergy photons around my head like a kind of massless, ethereal holywater.

clickclickclick pause clickclick pause

my ears' stereo perception allows me to sense it as it moves around me in randomly paced arcs, always counterclockwise. . .

To celebrate the liberation of Korea from the yoke of Japanese Imperialism, I will not be bombarded with high-energy photons today.

I had intended to sleep in, but as those who know me are aware, I'm not always very good at sleeping in. So… good morning.

Perhaps a nap, later?

I definitely have enough of a headache to assume it's residual of the radiotherapy and not just something unrelated, especially as unlike most headaches it seems rooted in my jaw. I don't want this to become a litany of whining or complaint, but I did set out to document my "cancer experience" as best I could, so I'm trying to present things as they happen.

More later, then.

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.

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.