always cheerful as she bustles about with her mops and bags and buckets, this is my favorite of the cleaning staff. she seemed very surprised at my desire to include her in my picture-taking mania. i tried to tell her in my bad korean that she helped a lot, cleaning floors or bathrooms or bagging up laundry. she ran away from my camera but i lingered patiently and so she came back and smiled.
this nurse is named ayeong. she surprised me very much last night. we were talking about the fact that today was my last day, and unexpectedly she said “ill tell you secret. tomorrow is my last day too.” of course i was very shocked but we ended up having two very long conversations, last night and this morning.
shes been at the hospital for 3 years. i learned some things about workplace politics at elite research hospitals in korea. shes burned out – she said shes going to find an easier hospital to work at. she has been very kind and always utterly professional. i feel sorry shes leaving NCC but i was lucky to have her as a nurse on her last month here. i hope she finds an ideal job.
mr kim, my longest-lasting roommate by far, checked out a few hours ago. actually, there had been some conflict early on, as his relatives and friends developed a mania for preaching aggressively to the room and its inhabitants. but even at the least pleasant i never had problems with mr kim himself . . when he interacted with me at all it was always a weak wave or salute or short pleasantry.
the interesting thing that happened was that as his post op condition improved, the preachy relatives got more pleasant and even friendly. we gifted them some fruit one time and i tried hard to be a respectful neighbor. stress and fear can drive good people to moments of regrettable action. at his exit hour the 76 year old mr kim was spry and dapper, changed into a dress shirt and slacks.
the picture is from earlier, when we got the mrs to offer a smile.
this is the head nurse for the ward. like all head nurses, shes a hardass despite her diminutive stature – she lurks and rules with an iron fist. but she has a remarkable bedside manner – she interacts personally with every patient in the ward at least twice a day, she knows all their stories and she has clearly reviewed everyones file.
further, when i was prepping for surgery last thursday, and andrew and curt were running late coming back from having gone to lunch, as i lay there nervous and scared as one is before going into surgery, she held my hand and pattered trivially for almost 20 minutes before the orderly wheeled my guerney into the elevator for the trip to the fourth floor.
later, i tried to tell her that she was a very kind person. she was adamant: i am NOT a kind person. but she kept that tight enigmatic smile on her face.
the window beside my bed showcases a misty, rainy jeongbal hill, at the heart of ilsan.
something of the desolation of the wards corridors at 440 am, the reek of high humid summer outside detectable despite air conditioners (the bizarre korean institutional habit of opening windows while running air conditioners obviously contributing), i began experiencing strong memories of middle-of-the-night cleaning or “guard” duties during basic training at fort jackson, south carolina, in july of 1990.
mr cho, my best friend by far that ive made in the cancer ward, checked out today.
i never imagined i would feel jealousy for people with colon cancer, but its by far the most common cancer being treated on the 10th floor (i cant speak for the other floors), and they have a veritable assembly line set up. even with complications, mr cho only stayed 10 days, and mr park was through in 7 days flat. meanwhile i languish here, watching the comings and goings of roommates and caregivers.
i will miss mr cho but feel confident that i will stay in touch with him. he and his wife were among the kindest and most inquisitive people i have met here. i wish them and their family the best. here is a picture of his wife, him (already in civvies) and me.
the wife or relative of one of the other patients. she has been quite social with me. she calls me 미남 [minam = handsome man]. like anyone, i am vulnerable to flattery.
looking at bukhansan eastward shortly after dawn.
just now, after an exahusting dinner, i walked past the southeast facing window. you can see the moon at center top.
i was doing a couple of circuits of the ward with mr cho upon waking up. i caught the sunrise. the monsoon is clearing. . . its beautiful but i know its sticky hot and humid outside.
this nurse is the best nurse of all – shes a clown (in this picture shes climbing on the counter) and shes a goofball and she talks to me in the most adorable korean baby talk that i find incredibly easy to understand and she tolerates my strange korean with smiles and effort at understanding. shes a natural-born language teacher.
this nurse has the absolute best english of anyone on the staff . . . when shes on shift i know i will never have a communication crisis, so she always calms my heart and brightens my day.
what better way to show my okayitude than some mugging for the camera with some favorite nurses?
this nurse is the “serious one” and it was hard to get her to pose. shes good for quick, efficient results.
mr park was an awesome and inspiring neighbor. he was not talkative but very strong willed. he was always pushing himself despite evident pain and discomfort. once he was lying in bed and suddenly he bounded up like a martial artist on meth and killed a fly in mid flight with a pillowcase, snap!
he checked out today. i will miss watching his facial expressions in response to the preachy familys discourses.
i ate everything on my tray. . first time. andrew helped with half a sandwich though.
i dont know what made the hospital decide to shake things up but this mornings breakfast was quite unkorean, if not strictly an american style breakfast either. and andrew shared some of his coffee from the cafe downstairs.
excellent view of bukhansan looking straight east from the 10th floor lobby.
an observation in an email from my friend bob made me realize there is probably a lot about undergoing medical treatment here in korea that is quite different from what similar treatment in the US would involve, that i have either failed to explain or have elided over.
bob was mentioning when i undergo speech therapy (for the tongue) or occupational therapy (for the right arm). i think it unlikely i will experience anything like these US concepts. the doctor tells me things to do – move your tongue like so or move your fingers like so and asks if ive been doing them later, and thats the extent of it.
patients are expected to be much more autonomous and self-providing, because the patient includes the family caregivers. patients without caregivers end up hiring them – a bit like hiring a home hospice worker to come help you in the hospital. every bed has a cot next it, and those cots are almost always occupied by caregivers – family, friends or paid workers NOT on the hospital staff. the cot by my bed is occupied by andrew, now – and was occupied by peter my first night out of icu.
an example of “caregiving”: the hospital doesnt provide for patient hygiene. caregivers handle bedpans, spongebaths, emptying and maintaining various external subtance receptacles, etc. if the hospital has to step in its begrudgingly and at extra charge.
because of these caregivers, my hospital room has 5 beds but arguably 10 or 11 inhabitants. its crowded and like a campout.
patients are quite autonomous. for example, i am only escorted to “clinics” in the event their location is new to me. otherwise a nurse will say “go see dr ryu” and im expected to go to the elevator, get to the second floor, and find my way across the building to where his work area is.
andrew attached the flowerpot gifted to me by my friend seungbae to the top of my iv stand. i was a bit sceptical – i imagine a nurse oh dont do that. but the head nurses reaction was only 예쁘구나 [oh pretty – not sure i spelled the korean right].
the charm of the hardcore, strictly korean menus of the hospital food has worn off. partly, since im still avoiding spicy food, that means the food thats left to me ends up pretty bland. but the big problem is that it turns out that the “tiny grains of rice” model of food is singularly maladapted to the demands of retraining my tongue. i do better with creamy substances or with things in discrete bite sized chunks. the grains of rice drift around my mouth uncontrolled and sometimes end up in my airways.
so yesterday we brainstormed some things that might be easier to eat, and andrew tromped off to homeplus and shopped last night.
this morning on waking i had a mini pre breakfast of a sliced plum and some yogurt. it was much less stressful than rice.
andrew, mary and jared. im eating naengmyeon – or trying. its not glamorous – later i choked on a noodle.
for the sake of completeness i include the following. im NOT playing around – this is not for the squeamish.
in reverse order, i underwent two procedures today that indicated supposed progress or at the least a battle against retrogression.
second, they drained around 200cc of pus from the somewhat infected wound on my neck. it was painless, since severed nerves in that region leave everything numb.
before that, first, i had the splint removed and wound redressed on the donor site on my right forearm. it looks pretty gross but theres zero infection and its healing well. now instead of a cast i have just a loose bandage – just when id gotten used to using my forearm as a table.
here is a picture of my forearm. the round scoop of skin and muscle were used to build my new tongue. modern medicine is amazing.
andrew, jared and peter laughing about something.
i stopped to talk with mr cho, my roommate, about positive thinking.
andrew and making kimchi cancer gangsigns.
another nurse.
another nurse.
my friend mary is visiting and i gave her my camera and she was effective following me around and taking pictures. blogposting by email limits me to one photo per post so i will make some entries about various things in photos. my life in the cancer ward. “orbit” refers to habit of walking a large circle the circumference of the tenth floor.
first picture. one of the wonderful kind nurses.
i knew if i got cancer someone would finally come visit me. my brother andrew arrived bedraggled and jetlagged, this evening. now theres more than one way in korea.
so my secret plan worked.
although my korean remains lousy, in other ways i am fully become ajeossi.
koreans use various wooden and plastic doohickeys
to massage their own backs when they cant get someone else to help, generally with a high degree of percussion.
grace brought me the wooden morningstar thing (photo on my windowsill, below) last night, and this morning i dutifully stood beside my bed and bonked my back, like a real ajeossi. it worked ok.
koreans are firm believers in curative powers of back bonking – they would organize gangs of orderlies in the icu and go around bonking all the patients every few hours. i dont doubt that human touch can be curative, and well placed massage too, but im slightly sceptical of percussion on the back as curative per se.
its not that i forgot the tastes. but with a reengineered tongue and mouth, my face must have been like a babys that first time you give them some new thing to eat. its not the taste thats blowing their minds but rather their efforts to sort out how to control this new object placed there. theres a lot to sort out . . chewing, but not so much as to chew the tongue, then steering the pieces gradually backward and toward the right tube at the back so as not to choke. imagine youve lost all of that automaticity . . . every bite takes several minutes to sort through. i still bit my tongue once.
they gave me juk (rice porridge), fish broth, some finely chopped beef with cabbage and carrots, some fake crab salad, white kimchi, and greens. i managed about 30 percent of the total, focused mainly on juk and fish broth.
i went to see dr jung this afternoon. while dr ryu is in charge of my neck, they share responsibility for my tongue and dr jung alone is in charge of my right arm. so dr jung and his team changed the dressing on my arm and inspected things.
should i describe what it looks like? i dont really want to, but the following conceit occurred to me: if i saw my bare right forearm on a stand in a modernist gallery, the caption would read “title: lovely spring flower. medium: putrefying flesh on a still living man.” that strikes me as a vaguely baudelairean joke. but in all seriousness, the artists seemed pleased with the outcome.
here is a picture of dr jung, me, and his two surgical nurse practitioners, jang and jeon. who seemed a kind ernie and burt in scrubs.
there were strong thunderstorms last night. i watched the lightening and listened to the rain and went to sleep again around 3am – first time to fall asleep without refreshing (topping off ) pain meds. it felt more natural and for the first time i awoke in a changed position from when i fell asleep. living on the edge. . .
here is a 6am view from the lobby windows. foreground is jeongbal high school and pungsan neighborhood, with the newer high rises of what i think of as “north of the railroad tracks” ilsan.
