Postscript: Five Years Later: The Final Cut
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, Commentary, General, Health, Humour, Living in Korea, Uncategorized
One of the involvements that I have been having recently, as part of a burgeoning interest in Stoicism as a philosophy of life, is of writing my reflections upon a question or proposition twice a day; the practice of Stoic (reflective) journalling. Twice a day, I record my responses to philosophical cues from Ryan Holiday’s “Daily Stoic Journal”, although not without gaps at present.
Philosophy, however, represents a reflective space, which can be highly personal, where the strands of one’s life can converge with new ideas, and in which new ideas can be introduced; and in this environment, the worth of those ideas can be compared. This is where the Journal comes in.
Here, finally, then, with something of a Stoic background, I am thinking about the post-experiential recollection and response to a health issue long after the event, essentially bringing my cancer narrative to a close. When they give you the Bad News, how should one respond? Is cancer cause for humour?
Tumour humour, much?
After some five years of completing the post-operative monitoring and being essentially cleared of cancer last December (with the obligatory you-know-what stuffed up my posterior), I recently found myself considering an odd question, late at night (well, I was lying in bed at the time, what a surprise!): after all, the cancer was not, and could not be, the only bad or stressful experience that I would face in my life. Also, I had recently passed the age of sixty, and despite the fact that since that time, I had been put on some half a dozen drugs for my blood pressure, biologically, at least, I seemed to be sound and stable – or, at least, as “sound and stable” as one might be, taking half a dozen drugs a day… it sounds worse than it really is. Really.
However, this led me to ask myself the question: years later, when a life-threatening condition would be in the increasingly remote past, how should I look back and react to it? An analogy might be with the kind of “gallows humour” one encounters among people who have dangerous occupations; some levity, however odd, relieves at least a little of the immediate stress.
Obviously, when I was first told that I had bowel cancer, considered to be a high risk, I was not exactly overjoyed: I had had a sudden, intense existential threat thrust into my face, and perhaps I need not suggest here how great the shock factor might be. The days immediately thereafter, when everyone around me was getting on with his or her own life basically as normal, seemed somewhat surreal. In much the same way that young people talk about death as a strange and remote thing, I had always thought of cancer as something that was unlikely to happen to me, yet here it was. Be warned, people: cancer strikes fifty per cent. of us before we finally kick the jolly old bucket. It could be you… actually, it probably will be.
Now… as I have become increasingly involved with considerations of Stoic philosophy recently, this suddenly came to the forefront of my thinking, as it seems to parallel the notion that emotional reactions to external stimuli are not necessarily appropriate, if only because most things in life are deemed by many mature people as not being worthy of comment. It is, to be honest, hard to not recall these things sometimes, as the human mind has a habit of recycling ideas and experiences, but there are definite benefits, as this helps to guard against forgetfulness. We should, however, remember this golden rule: not everything you see in life is worthy of comment. Learn, instead, to laugh inside with maybe a wry smile to yourself. Laughter will always take away some of your own stress. Don’t try to share it with or explain it to others, as they will probably take it in the wrong sense, and you may even find yourself ostracised as a result. People are funny like that; there are too many strange (or otherwise bizarrely self-indulgent and narcissistic) people in society.
Stress itself is a known cause (or contributory factor) of cancer, and we can hardly suggest that daily life is lacking in stressful elements – if you are foolish enough to have the TV on for any length of time, the news media (which you actually pay for, back in the UK), is non-stop stressful propaganda. I sometimes feel that people could get cancer just from too much time spent immobile watching the goggle box. No kidding! The bullshit is both constant and unbearable; the most sensible thing to do is turn it off. Hence, very often here in Korea, as I try to get new apartments of the unfurnished variety and do not have a television of my own, I will simply get the Internet hooked up and not worry about it. I will choose what pabulum my mind should receive, thank you very much. Some unfurnished apartments, like the current one, may come with a TV, but I basically ignore it.
TV needs to be avoided because it is populated by a strange caste of narcissists, and these are also a group who should be excluded from your life, as their presence is a great source of stress. Especially if one of these is someone you actually admire, ask yourself whether what they do presents a realistic or even acceptable example of social behaviour. Also, does their behaviour or attitude represent a benefit to wider society? Probably not. Sadly, our civilisation has begun on its downward slope and we are about to witness a huge decline and fall. The narcissists are a parasitic class who produce little of value (but typically value themselves and their opinions rather highly, so go figure), but slowly burden society down until it is unable to rise again, like ticks infesting an old pasture horse until it suddenly drops dead. Turn off the TV and keep them out of your living room. Their dubious doings are no concern of yours.
When it comes to philosophy, Stoicism is too often regarded as encouraging an attitude of detachment and possibly even emotionlessness in the face of what many would call suffering or misfortune, but in reality, the original Stoics were people who rejoiced in life; despite the bad experiences that they encountered, the Stoics asked themselves what they were (or should be) grateful for; was life completely bad, or did they still have things which were good, which they should remember even as the misfortune was perhaps upon them? The popular perception of Stoicism is incorrect, and is the result of ignorance.
When we remember the origins of Stoicism with the death of Socrates, the reactions of his admirers and followers and, indeed, the passage of Stoic philosophy through generations of thinkers such as Marcus Aurelius, we need to remember that the backdrop to their experience of daily life, of what it meant to be human, was in a world very different from the world we know today. There was undeniably a greater opportunity for suffering in a society with not only slavery and plebeian poverty but also a culture in which punishment was often almost synonymous with entertainment; also, reading Suetonius’ account of the lives of the Caesars makes it very clear that being in a position of privilege or wealth in ancient Rome was no real defence against either persecution or sudden death.
Life in those days required a certain amount of fortitude simply to exist and survive in a world where death could come at any moment, whether at the hands of an interlocutor with ill intent or due to the relatively primitive state of medicine; as history shows, even the emperors of Rome were not immune, as even their own bodyguards could turn on them at a moment’s notice. Ancient societies necessarily persisted at the point of the sword, infant mortality was high and they did not have the advantage of such things as antibiotics in the event of diseases. Since life could be snatched away in an instant, people needed not only to live in the moment, but also to reflect upon whether they were actually making good use of their time and having good plans for an uncertain future. When a Stoic spoke about “gratitude”, you can be sure that at least part of what they were grateful for was the simple joy of being able to wake up the next morning to experience another additional day of being alive. Ironically, the main threat to the original Stoics was that they were misperceived as seditious malcontents, when in fact they were more concerned with how a good life could be lived.
As the ultimate origin of what we now call “Stoicism” was with Socrates, let’s not forget what was probably his most important assertion: that an unexamined life was not worth living. When we are confronted with the Bad News, perhaps, in a Socratic vein, we should be asking ourselves what kind of lessons we will have learned in its aftermath, when we have the opportunity of a post-experiential examination of what happened, and how it should inform our thinking in the future. Socrates would probably berate us as contemptible fools, destined to live our lives in suffering and ignorance, if we took little or no time to consider the lessons that the experience had brought us.
In a developed modern society, surrounded by the products of advanced technology and medicine, it is perhaps too easy to fall into the illusion of a kind of virtual immortality; indeed, so many of us seem to live as if we think death will never come. The ancient Romans knew this, and their watchword was “memento mori”: “remember that you must die”. We are all mortal and irrespective of our individual desires or intentions, death is something that we must all face in the end. In such circumstances, there is at the same time not only irony in laughing at past misfortunes, but also optimism in the realisation that we were strong enough to endure them. Paradoxically, perhaps, the experience also gives us strength and hope when other misfortunes strike – experience which we can share with others when they are likewise affected. It was hard when the crisis was upon us, but the outcome was that we discovered what strength we could summon up from deep within ourselves when we needed it most. What we discovered was, in fact, that we had more strength than we ever imagined; strength such as is difficult to explain to others. The medicine and science are great and all, but without an appropriate Socratic self-examination after the fact, perhaps, nothing would have been learned.
It is not without reason that we speak of “cancer survivors”, even with the benefits of modern medical technology, but unfortunately, we cannot avoid the inevitable. In the twenty-one years since I left the UK, the older members of my extended family have also been passing to the great beyond, something that I could not fail to notice; medicine can only take us so far before biology strikes. They did not all die of cancer, but due to a range of the afflictions of old age. We must learn to see these things as signals from the future; yes, the passing of our friends and family is always deeply saddening, but in the face of that which cannot be avoided, perhaps we should be celebrating the achievements by which they will be remembered. The mourning itself passes eventually, and they live on in the memories of those who survive them. However, we all go the same way, in the end. Memento mori.
At the time, when my own cancer was diagnosed, I had no idea what would happen in the period of days leading up to the operation, or indeed whether the actual end was looming. I shared a very small ward space with six other male patients who were at different stages of progression. As smoking is still very prevalent in Korea, there was no doubt in my mind that this was responsible for the condition in at least some of my temporary cohabitees, and with some of them, the progression was clearly advanced and it was affecting their minds. Outside, the weather was cold, as it was now early January, and as I was waiting to have my operation, I would watch the snow falling past the ward window, which was a strange contrast with the surprisingly high temperature that was maintained indoors, and which kept me constantly sweaty. [1] Of course, a single room was possible, but I was told that the cost was some KRW450,000 a night, so that decision was kind of already made for me… the others would simply have to put up with my snoring…
One might also comment that there is an element of fatalism in abandoning oneself to whatever is to come, yet assenting to an operation is not a guarantee of survival. We place our trust in the surgeon, but there is no absolute certainty of returning alive from anaesthesia; some abandonment and casting oneself upon the seas of fate is a requirement in such circumstances, not a choice. As it happens, the operation proceeded as planned and I was transported back to my bed with a load of catheters and cannulae inserted at various points (not to mention the Fecal Diversion Device itself), which rather hampered both easy movement and routine hygiene; but I persisted. It seemed the right thing to do at the time…
Over five years after the event, I find myself often reflecting upon that brief encounter with mortality with varying amounts of humour, sometimes rather dark, maybe still maintaining the typical human delusion in my mind of immortality, even as the reality creeps ever closer, considering that I have now reached the age of sixty. However, it is because I made a choice that I am able to sit here, typing this on my tablet; and because I made that choice, and did not succumb to a kind of paralytic indecision at a moment when mortality beckoned, I am free to continue my life as I wish, at least, for as long as it lasts. Perhaps this is, in fact, the most important take-away from the experience: it’s not the odd humour itself but the surviving and being able to indulge in the humour, because without the former, the latter is impossible. Socrates was right; you learned something there.
What, then, can I offer by way of advice to anyone who has such a circumstance thrust upon them?
Firstly, let me express due gratitude to Professor Kim Jae-hwang, the surgeon, his team, and the ladies and gentlemen on the ward, who all put up with an odd foreigner with grace and dignity. Secondly, let me express my gratitude to my ex-manager at Times Media, Jamie, who did not hesitate to get me to an initial specialist’s examination when the symptoms became severe. Let me, thirdly, express my gratitude to another lady who stepped in to countersign the necessary forms when another had promised to do so, but did not turn up as agreed. I need not mention her name here, but her signature was probably the most vital component in all of this.
My final advice might be something like this: survival is manifested as a consequence of many things, many factors, perhaps many choices, but when mortality calls, you must make the decision, and don’t be afraid. If the price of your indecision is death, it is still a choice that you must make; as we saw above, greater minds than yours have been taxed by similar situations in times past, and did not waste time on it. They were no more welcoming of the inevitable than you, but understood that they were free to choose; and what followed from their choices became history. Moral (perhaps): make the right choice, and maybe you won’t be history…
… you want to be able to look back, many years later, and laugh; recalling that time when death came to call, and was denied…
… and be grateful.
References:
[1] In fact, I had to collect my urine each time I went to relive myself, as they were monitoring this output. The trouble, of course, was that I was sweating so much that this would distort any figures that they were calculating.
When the Haemo-Globbin Comes Throb-Throb-Throbbin’ Along…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under A Farewell to Authority, Cancer Diary, Commentary, General, Gripes, Humour, Living in Korea, Uncategorized
With immaculate timing the current Coronavirus panic set in just as I was due to have another colonoscopy. Predictably, things did not proceed as planned…
It had been expected to just happen as normal: first the purge, then the laying prone on the gurney, unconscious, while the medics did the dirty work; usually a short and painless procedure, but alas, it was not to be! First I screwed up with the purgative, and then, on the day, my blood pressure was too high. Again. And again. The nurse in charge decided that the colonoscopy could not proceed because of the danger of accidental bleeding resulting from any internal injury during the procedure and decided that it had to be postponed (!) until my blood pressure had been stabilised at a more “normal” reading, and I ended up discussing it with a cardiologist, who put me on Norvasc (calcium channel inhibitor) for fourteen days and gave me a little book to write my daily readings in. Readings that I would take with my little Panasonic BP meter that I bought back in 2008 and appears to still be going strong. Alas!
Now, when it comes to the reading of blood pressure, I personally have a few gripes. When I went back into education in 1985 (because the job situation in the UK was so atrocious), one of the first things we studied was physiology, and we were trained in how to use an actual sphygmomanometer in combination with an actual stethoscope to listen for the Korot’koff Sounds and measure blood pressure, so I already have a very good idea about how to do this with the most basic equipment… but when the new regulations about annual health checks for foreign employees in South Korea kicked in at the end of 2007 (immediately after Lee Myung-bak was elected – remember?), I decided to get my own dumb-bell set plus my own BP meter (as the local Hi-Mart in the centre of Changwon had a range of different models available at the time). I also paid close attention to the technique required in order to avoid systematic errors when taking my BP each day. What I discovered was:
Posture was very important: Whereas the use of the sphygmomanometer/stethoscope pair allowed a range of body positions so that an optimum body posture could be employed (and most specifically, avoiding abdominal compression which would render misleading pressures), not only my own wrist BP meter but also a lot of the ones commonly available in public places involved a position in which the user has to sit down and lean forward. When the patient is overweight, this results in the abdominal fat deposits being compressed, increasing abdominal pressure and giving an elevated reading, so care is needed to find a posture which avoids this error. At home, I now take care to sit with my back straight and no pressure on the abdomen, and abdominal muscles relaxed, measuring elbow on the desk and supported by the other arm, as recommended in the device’s operating instructions.
Muscular exercise (for example, with weight training or more aerobic forms of exercise) causes the muscles to absorb fluid from the rest of the body, lowering the overall blood pressure. This can be seen by monitoring your BP some time after exercise.
Blood pressure taken in the early morning after awakening is usually the lowest (except actually during sleeping) because all body muscles have been relaxed during the night and have yet to tighten up due to normal diurnal body movement. BP peaks during the afternoon and evening and then begins to decline again. At one point (about eleven or twelve years ago) I would get up in the morning and measure my BP and get results like 50/30 (!). A normal (or more accurately, nominal) reading should be approximately 120/80 and even moderate daily exercise should maintain this. Again, measuring your BP some time after a long walk (for example, but allowing time for your body to relax first) should give a reading very close to normal.
My gripe with the typical automatic BP monitor seen in many public places in Korea is precisely this: that they encourage a bad body posture by forcing patients to be slumped forward, increasing abdominal pressure. To this I would add that in Korea, one is not allowed time to rest before taking a seat and being expected to take a measurement. The result is that (again) readings are too high and in the wrong posture to isolate the readings that you are trying to take. I have lost count now of how often – going back at least ten years – I have had to move rapidly between hospital departments for things like routine medical exams. Ridiculous!
Now obviously, with training in biomedical science and having twenty-four-hour Internet access, I do a lot of research online. Norvasc (which was prescribed in the first instance) is supposed to reduce ambient BP by up to 12/6 (systolic/diastolic), but so also is beetroot juice because it contains a lot of nitrate, which the body reduces first to nitrite and then to nitrogen (II) oxide, a potent agent for several processes including the relaxation of the artery wall muscles. I bought a liquidiser but unfortunately it wasn’t powerful enough to cope with raw beetroot, so whilst shopping at Lotte the other day I noticed that they sold at least two beetroot/apple juice combinations (one more expensive than the other). As it happened, after only nine days the Norvasc took my BP down to normal levels, but laboratory blood tests on sample taken concurrently with the initial consultation indicated that I was hyperlipidaemic (i.e. had a level of blood lipids deemed above normal range) and the consultant has now put me on Atacand and Lipitor. The actual blood pressure medication was therefore changed, although I was instructed to finish the last of the Norvasc pills (one per day) before changing to the new prescription.
Although this might seem a rather negative outcome, we have to remember that a lot of what has been observed is the result of an enforcedly static lifestyle. The walking distance between either work and home or home and wherever I would buy food and drink is very short and not likely to result in sufficient exercise; likewise, there is a great shortage of entertainment around here, so the result is an oversupply of food, boredom and a sedentary lifestyle. The human body did not evolve for the urban environment. Also – of course – people are being asked to stay at home while the Coronavirus issue is current, further compounding the problem. The consultant said that I should get at least thirty minutes of walking exercise per day, something which used to be normal until about two years ago because there could often be a long distance between home and work (or, at least, the nearest bus stop). If it had been possible to return to the area here where I used to live – in the north of the city, thirty to forty minutes’ commuting time – this would have been less of a problem, but last year, my manager was very insistent that she wanted me to be living as close as possible to the office in case of the need for a sudden interview. We have had no “sudden interviews” since I returned here, so that seems to have been a waste of time; now we discover that it has been deleterious to my health too.
Happily, at least according to the cardiologist yesterday, this is not an irreversible situation but it does involve a number of lifestyle changes which – to some extent – had already been in place. My alcohol consumption has generally been low recently as I have tended to want to hit the sack rather than stay up; the only trouble being that what I have been drinking has tended to be two or three cans of foreign cider on special offer, the issue here being not just the minimal alcohol input but also the deleterious effects of the sugar – fructose – which is a natural component of cider. My online research seems to suggest that this should also be avoided, but the trouble here is that it is a sweetener added on a truly industrial scale to a whole range of foods and beverages; very difficult to avoid. However, the cardiologist said that for a person my age, this should perhaps be expected, but could be mitigated eventually by diet and sufficient exercise. Now, if it would just stop raining…
Latest Check-up: November 4th 2019
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, General, Gripes, Living in Korea, Lost Geographies, Odds and Ends..., Uncategorized
Just this Saturday, the hospital’s automated messaging system texted me to let me know that it was time to see Prof. Kim again, and perhaps also render blood samples!
It’s hard to believe that it is now twenty-two months since part of my colon was excised and the two ends stitched together again; hard to believe that in that time I have actually had three jobs (although two of them are the same one) and gone from here to Jinju and back. As it happens, when asked by manager Jamie recently whether I wanted to stay, I gave her a “maybe” answer – until I remembered that too many students really want to teach kids, and this is something that no longer interests me. So later, the answer was “no”… probably because yes, it has been stressful. No kidding!
Another thing that hit me kinda hard – ouch! – was when I wondered if I could find my old domicile, back in the north of Miryang, on Google Street View (yes, unfortunately I still have uses for Google). That was back in March 2009 – ten years ago! – when I finally left Changwon, where I had been for my first six years in Korea, to take on my first public school job, and looking back, I now think that was a major error, especially considering that after I left the KDLI in 2014, I ended up working at the same place in Changwon again, although not for long, as Mr. Lee’s customer base was already shrinking.
Lo! and Behold! – it was still there, and although there had clearly been some more building in the area since I was living there; remarkably the unoccupied plot in front of the entrance was still rough ground with someone’s veggies growing on it. Some things never change!
Anyway, it’s been a long time, and I have been working in so many places around the country, but I still think that Changwon was the best place for actually living, largely I suspect because it has a more “human” scale than bigger places like Busan and Daegu, and actually walking to where you want to go physically rather than taking public transport, for example, is often not unrealistic, not to mention healthier. Miryang was also not actually bad – in fact, getting out of bed early and walking from my place across the island to the school, and walking back again afterwards, was by no means a drawback. Likewise, Changwon is a place where routine exercise (in the sense of getting plenty of walking in) is both easy and pleasurable.
Other changes to my Lost Geography have taken place within the last ten years – relatives, including, alas, my own mother – have passed on in that time and even returning to my own country appears extremely unpalatable; it’s unclear at the moment what the best option might be.
Now we return to today, and my latest conflab with Professor Kim. Since I last saw him, one interesting change has taken place: recently, I came off the generic Lopmin (Imodium) capsules that were prescribed for me as an antidiarrhoeal because I was finding that they were perhaps somewhat too effective (i.e. a bit too powerful for my own sensitive and residual gut); it was at times difficult to pass stools because they were so dry and stiff, so I experimented several times until I felt that I could be confident not to shit my pants at an inopportune moment, such as, for example, when shopping or in the middle of a lesson.
At first it was a bit dodgy, but I think it may have been helped by a couple of things: firstly, the fact that I tend not to drink a lot of water on work days, and secondly that when I do drink on work days, it tends to be quite strong coffee, especially for “breakfast”, which otherwise I normally leave out. On one hand, therefore, there is reduced water intake coupled with a strong diuretic (high-strength, “shoot-me-to-the-Moon” coffee), and on the other, there is the prevention of the gastrocolic reaction by, er, not eating. I think that this combination is assisting my truncated gut to perform its natural dehydration function more normally, as less digested food is passing through it, and secondly my body is running lean on water anyway. The result is mainly stools with normal colour and consistency, although exactly when they demand to be released still tends to be rather random like, say, two or three a.m. Generally, however, it is no longer so bad; I think the main thing is avoiding a large meal to prevent the gastrocolic reaction taking place at an unhelpful moment… I need hardly repeat Professor Kim’s admonition to lose weight.
He and I discussed this and the main problem is getting enough sunlight exposure for my skin to manufacture sufficient Vitamin D naturally. I take a number of supplements for this regularly but obviously, natural is better and my little “issue” here is that normally I have little exposure to sunlight due to the desk-bound work that I often perform (and also spending much of a working day indoors in any case), so getting enough daylight input is rather difficult.
Clearly, this means that the job itself (and the associated work) is therefore something of an “issue”. Another is the preponderance of mainly female prospective students who want to teach kids, something I lost interest in a long time ago. So the adverts are out and I am looking for something new (which I also mentioned to Professor Kim, as this would make routine checks more difficult). Some might complain that perhaps I protest too much and should just suck it up, but the fact remains that after all this time in Korea, some disillusionment has long since set in and the general teaching environment is demotivating for someone like myself. I need something more relevant and appropriate to find my mojo again. I used to teach kids for the purpose of survival, and not because I enjoyed it.
Shortly after my contract ends, I will have to go to the Gu Hospital again to have my colon inspected with a large and fearsome tool, and as I have elected not to re-sign before that time, I don’t know quite where I will be at that exact moment, but as always, I remain optimistic. Time and again a job has come along (sometimes almost too late) and I have been here for another year. I had hoped to have transitioned to something else a long time ago, but unfortunately circumstances have prevented this. Perhaps that is where I should be focusing for the remainder of my time in Korea.
Colonoscopy… Finally…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, General, Living in Korea, Uncategorized
At long last, I finally arranged my colonoscopy, which was way overdue and should have been done about five months ago… you’re probably not surprised by now…
What follows is an expanded (slightly) version of a recent FB update, a couple of days later.
So… having surfaced on time with the cell phone alarm too early on a Friday morning (“Fishing Junks at Sunset” by Jean Michel Jarre at literally 4:00am local time), and my sore a-hole having recovered somewhat from yesterday’s probing, I made my way to work and I’m sitting at the front desk now on the last Saturday morning of the current session, with the weekend class sweating away at their Final Exam.
Previously, back in Professor Kim’s consultation room, I had explained that it was not possible to do the colonoscopy that day because of that disgusting “CoolPrep” purgative which had returned whence it came poste-haste, not just because it was retch-inducing in its own right, but also because it was lemon flavoured. I’m allergic to lemon and although on prior occasions I had managed to scarf it all down pretty much as required, this final time my stomach’s reaction couldn’t be prevented.
When the Prof. pointed out that I had apparently taken it with no problems before, I went into “That was then, this is now” mode. Repeated exposure had sensitised me to it, and the result was on the living room floor… he should be grateful; he didn’t have to clean it up afterwards…
I remember waking up Friday morning after the colonoscopy, on the hospital gurney, lying on my back and thinking: “That was over very quickly!”, and indeed it was… beforehand, Dr. Song had told me that it would only take about ten minutes, and it certainly seemed that way; one injection and I was out like a light.
After I came around, a couple of nurses walked me (somewhat unsteadily) back to Doctor Song’s consulting room and he gave me the low-down: they had gone all the way through the remaining colon as far as my appendix, and there were no signs of polyps, no signs of any return of the cancer, really the only visible thing was the healed scar of the anastomosis (the point where Professor Kim had re-joined the severed ends of my colon after the tumour had been removed) could be seen. He showed me the photos taken during the procedure and I have to admit, it did look good. If you can call the appearance of your gut lining “good”, that is…
With that, he told me that I could go, and after changing back into my usual duds, I walked out of the consulting room. As I passed the lobby desk, they handed me a small bottle of Pocari Sweat to help restore lost electrolytes. They had given me a new type of purgative which is taken as discrete pills rather than being drunk as a liquid, the two main disadvantages of which seemed to be – firstly – that you had to (try to) take fourteen (!!!) of them with copious liquid within about fifteen minutes, once the night before and once again very early the next morning before going to the hospital, and – secondly – that these pills were new and not actually covered by the national health insurance, although at KRW35,000 I didn’t feel too put out by the unexpected cost. Thankfully, they were not needed… and I didn’t sleep much… got back home about noon and went to sleep PDQ…
Again, previous experience when I was still learning how to moderate the function of my dysfunctional colon with the Lopmin (an antidiarrhoeal preparation available in discrete capsules) made me take the precaution of packing some diapers (large size of course) in my bag before setting out, with some added inner pads (in case a double diaper was necessary). As it happened, the hot summer weather and the dehydration that accompanies it together have a habit of mimicking the effects of the Lopmin to some extent, so I was able to go to the hospital and back again, by public transport, without any, er, embarrassment… Thankfully, then, they were not needed… and I didn’t sleep much… got back home about noon and went to sleep PDQ…
I have to say that the hospital department seemed to be run as a tight ship and all the patients seemed to be processed quickly and efficiently; the only little “problem” we seemed to have was that the young nurse couldn’t find a suitable arm vein for the Ringer’s solution drip and had to ask for assistance from another nurse after three botched attempts (ouch!), but we got there in the end… ( and two days later, as I sit here editing this, I can still see the bruises).
So now I am sitting in on a quiet Final Exam for the current weekend class. Tonight I will be busy marking their papers, and tomorrow they will graduate… and do you know something? I am looking forward to sleeping on Sunday night…
Final Quarterly Check and the Future
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, Commentary, General, Gripes, Living in Korea
Regular readers of this pointless screed – all two of you – may have noticed that the due date of the fourth and final quarterly check has come and gone with little from myself by way of the usual commentary, and indeed, you would be quite correct. That, however, is down to my erstwhile employer deciding to let me go when I had expected to re-sign (and even had a two-year apartment contract to prove it). This turned out to be another minor disaster, but we are now close to some kind of resolution, so, blogging time again…
Long-term readers will also recall that when I first set foot on Korean soil, I had signed up for a hagwon job and proceeded to stay in that job for almost six years; it was, in fact, only some shenanigans on the part of my then-boss relating to national pension payments that finally caused me to throw up my arms in despair and transition to my first public school job.
Looking back, that was something of a mistake, and the adventure of transitioning from one employer to another virtually every year since then has been both unwelcome and expensive; before hitting Jinju, I had had the luxury of being able to remain in Daegu for two years, but only because I was fortunate enough to have two successive employers. Hopefully I can put all of that behind me now, but it is curious to observe firstly that Oneself is still somehow considered a desirable foreign employee even when knocking on the doors of 57 (and having had medical treatment for bowel cancer, no less), and secondly that I can return to a previous position with something approaching nonchalance.
As it happened, the last employer had someone else in mind (male, British and younger) who had worked there previously and they therefore had no intention of re-signing me, but had (I heard, don’t ask me how) been given instructions to “go through the motions”. They also had a student feedback system but for some bizarre reason, my co-teacher (who was also the officer in charge) decided not to pass any of it on to me, which would have been quite helpful; in fact, he hardly ever told me anything at all for his remaining time there, leading to a situation (as my Canadian co-worker would probably confirm) in which I was basically flying blind, and spending a lot of my time sitting there with apparently nothing to do. Important information often came to me from his Korean co-worker, something which I gather she also found irritating, to say the least. The final straw for me was when I was handed my annual teacher evaluation (which both of us foreigners actually failed) and one of the students’ comments was: “Please teacher, no more homework!” – which was insane because the speaking classes had no homework. Can you spell “lying, lazy little toerags”?
Thankfully, I received that evaluation the week I left, promptly replaced it in its envelope and forgot about it; after all, my Canadian co-worker, who is a professionally qualified teacher with mucho experience of all kinds of teaching, but ended up sitting next to me having become disenchanted with the outcome of ten years spent teaching at the local university, himself complained about how we were faced with the impossibility of changing our style to be more suitable on account of the fact that at no time had we actually been briefed on the criteria for evaluation. One’s working life in Korea is littered with these scintillating samples of silliness, but looking back, I can vouch for the fact that my experience of similar work in Taiwan was little better.
So… the time came when the final quarterly check was due, and this meant a blood sample (ouch), CT scans and a final poke of the endoscope up one’s nether hole, but alas, it was not all to be: the purgative, this time, was extremely difficult to get down and I ended up with a load of it coming back up from my stomach all over the living room floor of the new apartment, as I made a dizzy dash to the bathroom, early on a Monday morning. That meant that the final endoscopic examination would eventually have to be performed at another hospital where they didn’t use lemon-flavoured (aaarrrghhh) CoolPrep polyethylene glycol plus minerals to push it all out in a matter of hours (it really leaves you drained, in more ways than one, believe me). The following Monday I went to get the results from Professor Kim and he told me that there were no visible signs of the spread of cancer, and I wouldn’t have to go there again for a couple of years, apart from the endoscopy, which would eventually be arranged at another hospital locally. Sounds positive to me!
When we come to the transition back to Daegu from Jinju, alas, it was not so straightforward, although by returning to my usual removal guy, Mr. Cho, I was able to save about ₩500,000 over the previous year’s removal company and, indeed, ₩200,000 from his own quote the previous year! Alas, confusion about where he was supposed to go to and from where meant that I got stung for another ₩100,000 to cover the cost of driving back to Jinju from Daegu before we could finally set off. Then the usual temporary chaos of everything dumped in any open space in the new place (I’m still slowly shoehorning everything into place even now) and the inevitable need to clean up a second time due to the mess this process generates.
Alas again, having already had a prolonged and awkward transition to Jinju from Daegu, I then had the same from Jinju transitioning back to Daegu, but worse – I was not able to get my expensive deposit back immediately because of the particular position of the property – in the north of the town, in a downtown barzydown area full of coffee shops, eateries and noraebangs, away from the “action” which would have been some distance away, around the university – and lost much of my final salary and severance paying the deposit on the new place. Thankfully there has been some minimal cash flow in the interim and at the time of writing, the Jinju landlord has found a new occupant, but I had to take a trip back to the apartment last Monday, as the latter person seemed to think it wasn’t clean enough! I travelled there, spent five or six hours scrubbing the place, then came back to Daegu… to wake up the next morning as stiff as a board, thanks to all that muscular exertion. The good news is that it seems that I may get my deposit (minus costs) back this coming Saturday. So that’s positive, too.
The downside has been that of the two normal sessions which we would have in a week (three weekdays for one course and the weekend days for the other) will not be fully operative until next month (May) as student recruitment is somewhat down again (and hence so is the salary), but the reduced workload has a benefit in the sense that there is an appreciable extent of lesson planning and material preparation and this needs some time to complete. Now, if I can just get enough sleep (yawwwnnn…), I can get it all done.
The other little issue I have been finding is that the combination of downtime and excess effort, on top of being notionally still a cancer patient, has all been very demotivating; everything has seemed to be a drag and this is not “me” at all. When confronted with impending mortality in the shape of a gut tumour, then the operation and sharing a very small cancer ward with others clearly in rather worse shape than myself, and then heartlessly being told that I was being released from my job and everything else that followed on it… you have no idea the levels of stress I have had to cope with at the same time as having to handle all these other things; the FDD had literally only just been removed and I had returned to my old Daegu home on a January afternoon when the phone call came, telling me that I would need to find something new! You have no idea what strength I have had to pull together, and from how deep within myself this has had to come; unbelievable. My mind has been greatly changed by this experience; I have no patience any more – none at all. If anyone gives me any hassle of any description, I will be triggered because I just cannot stand being messed around or held up any more. As Beethoven discovered before he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, Fate has knocked at the door, and one emerges from the experience transformed, although not in a way that many people would consider positive because one now takes a very negative view of a lot of one’s environment, society, politics etc. Zero tolerance from now on. No more bullshit. Everything I see is stupid, and disgusts me.
To conclude, when we ask the question of what happens next, I will be remaining in this position for some time to come, unless something dire happens. The new apartment is great-ish, being of very stable temperature when the weather is cold (and it was surprisingly cold until the middle of April) and having a small blessing in the form of an actual wardrobe next to the bedroom, something I have not been fortunate to have before. It is easy to keep clean (although I am still trying to rid the place of the odour of the previous occupant’s dog food) and there are marts and convenience stores a-plenty here, although there is not much in the way of entertainments, but I dare say I will find something eventually (as I don’t have a good cash flow right now, maybe staying home and getting the paperwork done is preferable).
Hopefully, as the financial situation improves, I will be able to get about a bit more, especially as one advantage of working weekends is that your own “weekend” is a couple of weekdays, so you can actually get shit done. Likewise, things which have broken down/worn out/disappeared in the last year or so should be replaced fairly swiftly (and I have been rather put out by how things have been suddenly becoming non-functional). The bottom line in my experience, however, remains true: that when the going gets rough, you have to make a decision. When faced with possible premature mortality in the form of cancer, and having never needed major surgery before, I decided that the reward was worth the risk. When ousted from my still-new job because of the need for treatment, I found a new job and relocated; and so it goes on. Life remains a series of decisions, and one surely discovers oneself, in the most literal understanding of the expression, when the decisions you are faced with relate directly to your survival.
Cancer Update: Third Quarterly Check
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, General, Gripes, Living in Korea
Things seem to be proceeding in a satisfactory fashion… but once I sat down and started writing, this blog suddenly became unexpectedly long!
After visiting Daegu again last Tuesday, I made sure to text Professor Kim on the Friday morning reminding him about letting me know the results as soon as possible – and reminded him again by text the following Monday morning (just in case, you understand). He very kindly obliged a short while later with his usual reassuring “nothing to worry about” response.
However, as if a mere text message (from the Male Professor Kim) were not enough, his locum last Tuesday, (the female) Professor Kim actually called me yesterday (Tuesday) lunch time to pass on the news. Which surprised me, firstly because I tend to receive very few calls on my cell phone at any time, and secondly precisely because of that exact time, as it would otherwise (probably) be one of those annoying advertorial-type robotised calls from the phone service provider (in this case, LG), which has been a regular irritation ever since I first signed up with them. Unfortunately I have (after fifteen long years here) still not learned enough Korean to understand what their automated calls are actually about, so they remain a noisy, jangling and rather pointless mystery. I realise that this is Korea (where English is not the native language), but surely, by now, there is a sufficient quorum of native English speakers to justify at least a minimal English language service?
We might now ask the question: where to from here on? As this is the third of four quarterly blood tests, the last will be in February and will include a (hopefully final) CT scan to give a visualisation of any otherwise undetected neoplasms. Not sure right now how frequently after that it will be necessary to keep checking, but rest assured that despite a constant feeling of tiredness (due to having to hit the bathroom several times each night), I am feeling well, with only the odd twinge of still-unsettled fatty tissues resulting from the operation itself to remind me that it ever happened… and starting to think about what I will be doing next year.
Looking back over the previous twelve or thirteen months, the remarkable thing has been how painless the detection, treatment, removal and convalescence have been in the course of all this. Using the robot for a laparoscopic procedure avoided a lot of the tissue damage that would have resulted from a more conventional (i.e. open) abdominal technique, and hence faster recovery and much less post-operative pain. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that I would have been much happier remaining in my previous job than having to find and secure a new one. This would have made the immediate post-operative period much less stressful – not to mention less expensive.
Something does need to be said, however, about the reactions of other people to the process, as my rapid recovery may have made them think that everything was normal. I assure you that this is not the case; although I may appear to be walking around in my typical manner, it is simply not possible to lose a foot of irreplaceable large intestine and not experience adverse effects. That part of the body is largely responsible for the removal of water from your solid wastes (as digestion is largely focused in the stomach and small intestine), and removing it compromises this function. This means that you need some kind of pharmaceutical intervention – the Lopmin capsules – to slow down the natural process of peristalsis and increase the residence time of food in the gut, thereby allowing it to remove water to a more normal consistency of stools. Alas, perhaps, my gut seems to be quite sensitive to Lopmin and the result of this is that I have made a habit of coming off the treatment temporarily at weekends to allow it all to pass out, as even the most minimal daily quantity still seems to be slightly too much, resulting in a regular ‘plug’ of drier material which is difficult to void at first. Having said that, the feeling afterwards is wonderful, but you do start to feel somewhat bloated by the mid-week…
Part of the reason for this is that the differing lumen diameters at the two joined ends make voiding (and retention) more difficult than they were originally. The part of the gut removed was that which (under normal circumstances) is perhaps less involved with desiccation and more with storage prior to voiding. This meant that semi-liquid digested food would otherwise be difficult to contain until at least some of the storage function could be restored – but to achieve that, the narrow lumen in the upper part of the anastomosis (the point where the upper and lower ends were joined) has to expand sufficiently, and the simplest way to achieve that, it seems, is to relax the smooth muscle in the gut wall so that the wall itself can expand to accomodate what needs to be, er, retained. It is no exaggeration to say that without Lopmin, retention would be impossible and I would always have to be a short dash from the nearest rest room; I kid you not. So that bloated feeling does at least give some reassurance that you are not going to shed a stinky load in a public place at five seconds’ notice, which was much how it was immediately after the operation. For this reason, I am also hanging on to my small supply of adult diapers…
All of which has meant that another regime of health management has had to be incorporated into my lifestyle. It is not hugely taxing, as in reality it amounts to little more than acquiring a few additional minor habits, but one’s social life is affected by all of this, and diet also. For example, I would not wish to be out every Friday or Saturday night because nowadays I am using this time to allow the release of several days’ stools, meaning that I have to stay at home for convenience; likewise, it is not a good idea to eat too much because what goes down must, eventually, come out, and one may become rather bloated by midweek without some attention to what one is eating. Finally, it is worth remembering that there is something of a moratorium on alcohol consumption with a view to avoiding the retardation of the healing process, at least for the first post-operative year.
The impression has come upon me that my apparent wellness has demonstrably been misleading to onlookers, who think that I am fully recovered and able to resume everything one hundred per cent. right now, but this is far from the truth. For example, I have been told that it would be helpful to lose weight, and I cannot do this if people constantly insist on offering me food. Sugar in particular is known as the primary fuel of cancer, and it has been proving difficult to transition to a more suitably ketogenic diet; the environment here does not seem to support it – indeed, from a sugar-avoidance point of view, Korea is getting worse due to a rise in the presence of franchised, Westernised-style restaurants, coffee shops and other places like the Paris Baguette and Tous les Jours-style bakeries. Professor Kim’s original admonition to avoid carbohydrate and err towards more animal protein has one unfortunate aspect, in that it requires spending more on food at a time when my salary is being squeezed by things like paying for my own accommodation, and repayment of the operation (and other associated) costs. Whic I think is also slowly tapping this job on the head!
At work, the offerings at the restaurants are essentially for younger people who need a lot of energy for their daily exercise, and hence there is a lot of carbohydrate available in the form mainly of rice. I am not saying that there is anything bad about the rice, as it makes the other food easier to eat, but it is a kind of food to avoid most of the time if a recurrence of the cancer is to be avoided, for reasons which have been discussed here previously. Anything alcoholic (other than, say, wine) necessarily tends to have associated sugar components if only to make the alcohol more palatable, so this should really be avoided, too. Even the beverages we have in our office are essentially laced with sugar and sweet creamers, as they come in sticks and the ones without sugar are virtually undrinkable. It is for this reason that I recently purchased a new coffee maker (as the old one was truly dying the death), as strong black coffee is actually a good thing – especially when you stagger out of bed of a weekday morning. Maintaining a low-carbohydrate diet is proving unexpectedly difficult, however.
All of which is making me think that a situation like last year would be much better – same style of employment, housing and diet – but that would mean losing this job and (probably) relocating to a new city, too. The bottom line, however, is that the expense of changing my diet (and other elements of lifestyle) would be far easier if I did not have to lose so much each month on renting my apartment, something which is almost unheard of among foreign English teachers in Korea. So we come to the run-up to Christmas this year with something of a quandary – stay in the current job and lose money on rent which would otherwise be helpful for my diet, or give it up and find something more suitable.
Decisions, decisions…
Third Quarterly Check: November
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, General, Living in Korea, Uncategorized
Here we go again…
A brief(ish) mention of my overnight trip back to Daegu for the third quarterly blood sampling to check that I am still non-cancerous… and how time flies! After some confusion about exactly when my (ahem) employer was going to permit me to take a day off, I got permission for Tuesday (today) and so went to work yesterday morning with a sports bag (black, of course) packed with bed wear and a second set of everything, made my way by taxi to the local train station, and… had to wait two hours because I was too late for the 6:15 train to East Daegu Station. What a surprise. Not.
Some time later (over two hours later, in fact) I was finally able to board the waiting Mugunghwa [1] train and make my leisurely way to my destination. Alas! The arrival time was 10:40 p.m. and I had been out of bed at 6:00 a.m., so the evening was to pass by slowly with me trying not to drop off, as I first had to make my way to my now-customary doss close to the University Dental School (and I knew about this because I stayed there the first time I wentto Daegu, because the new apartment, just across the road, was standing vacant), then went to see if my favourite small watering-hole-cum-eaterie was still closed, as it had been the last time I was there…
Imagine my surprise to discover that it had actually changed ownership, and the new incumbent had installed a huge, stainless steel booze dispenser with taps for not only Guinness and Indica, but also Lindemann’s Kriek (cherry ale)! A customer could simply refill their glass at a rate of 340 won for each liquid ounce. But I stuck resolutely to a small amount of vodka and tonic, which cost a mere 4,000 won and did not appear to be the cheapest (because the cheapest vodkas available in Korea resemble battery acid all too closely…). This was used to wash down a small plate of cheesy potato fries with a hot chili sauce, after which I went back to my room, thinking that 12:30 a.m. was still a bit late considering that an early awakening was necessary (even on a day off work) due to having a 9:30 a.m. appointment.
Back to the room, picked up two cans of Somersby and drank part of one after a shower… and woke up in agony later that morning, having absent-mindedly allowed myself to have a quick stretch, and forgetting that this usually results in a painful Achilles tendon… I lay on the bed cursing in agony until the pain subsided, but thereafter was hobbling around (I can still feel it now that I am back home). Morning ablutions and packing completed, I handed the room key back and wandered out into the morning sunlight.
I made my way to the hospital via the subway and didn’t have long to wait before seeing “another” Professor Kim (female this time) and she asked me how things have been, and I responded that there seemed to be no problems other than occasional twinges from the robot’s entry wounds, and she said that this was normal. They also said that some time before the end of the first post-operative year, they would like me to a second CT scan, and of course, this immediately creates issues, as I have a job that I am expected to do and have to travel between towns each time there is a check-up, and the cost of this also adds up. So I will have to get back to my original Prof. Kim about that to arrange a time.
Interview concluded, I paid for my tests, got the receipt and went to the open phlebotomy parlour, waited my turn and put out my left arm for the attentions of Dracula (actually a young female phlebotomist). I had to strip off a number of items of clothing beforehand, as the November weather had been getting to me and I was now wearing an extra layer or two, then put them back on again a few minutes later. There must be a more efficient way of doing this!
Then I paid another visit to Jamie, my former manager, who was in attendance in her office down the road even though there were no lessons on a Tuesday, and gave her an update about how things were going in Jinju over a small cup of warm tangerine tea. The university buildings were very quiet, as usual, and our conversation was punctuated only by the brief presence of a maintenance technician (I would never refer to such a person as an ‘engineer’ like they do here) to reload the photocopier with a new toner cartridge, plus a small number of phone calls. Then I said goodbye, and returned to the subway to get back to East Daegu Station.
As luck would have it, there was a KTX going south and due to arrive in only a few minutes. The problem? The girl behind the ticket counter had quite a strong accent and I had difficulty hearing her over the counter, but we eventually understood each other and I grabbed my ticket and quickly made my way down to platform 7, and was soon on my way. Without even time to grab anything to eat or drink. But I got back to Jinju, grabbed a taxi home, picked up some more allergy pills on the way and made my way back to the apartment.
Anyway, I arrived back feeling rather tired – not a lot of sleep the last couple of days – but lessons are basically finished for the duration and much of what remains is merely paperwork, which will occupy the rest of my time this week. The second CT scan will have to wait until next month. Perhaps. Possibly. Maybe. We’ll see what happens – the results of the blood tests should be available soon.
1: “Mugunghwa” meaning, we are told, “Rose of Sharon”. Sounds a strange name for a flower for a country in East Asia, but who am I to comment?
The Love (and Lack) of Reading
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, Commentary, Computing, General, Gripes, Living in Korea, Odds and Ends..., Uncategorized
With space dwindling on all my drives, I lost it this weekend and ordered a new 2TB hard drive for my main machine.
The fact that my new KT Internet keeps flipping out every morning is hardly pleasing me, either…
It seems to be one of those things these days… when I was younger and didn’t have the level of personal technology that I have now, you would routinely find me with my nose in a book or a magazine novels by Michael Moorcock, Fortean Times, that kind of thing. Alas, my needs these days, where moving between cities has been costing an arm, a leg and perhaps several other limbs over the years, things have contracted. I am not buying books routinely, not because I dislike books or even that I cannot afford them; no.
The trouble has been that I have encountered a number of impediments to relaxed and undisturbed reading. Many of the apartments have been unfurnished and without a bed to sleep on, never mind a comfortable reading chair; and when I got my last pair of glasses, the lenses (courtesy of Carl Zeiss, would you believe) came with a varifocal profile and two reading dimples placed in a position for an upright (rather than comfortably recumbent) head position. In addition, the kind of central room lighting here is terrible for extended sessions of reading, but I never seem to move between apartments without losing more appropriate reading lamps. My own personal preference is low-intensity ambient lighting, especially for reading, ideally from proper bulbs and not from LED shit, which is enriched in blue-wavelength emissions known to damage human eyesight [1]. So my actual domestic environment for reading has not been good for a long time. I really want to change that, and with a little reaasonable effort, that’s precisely what I aim to do over this coming winter.
In the meantime, however… ironically, the oldest working HD that I have is the original 80Gb drive I used to build my first machine in Korea back in 2004. The only reason I don’t use it any more is because all the new mobos I’ve seen don’t have IDE interfaces any more – only SATA.
If not for that, I’d still be using all my IDE drives because – so many years after I bought them – they are all still working. The biggest are 500Gb and they are now idle due to a preference on the part of the mobo manufacturers for SATA; go to Gmarket and, likewise, you will see that IDE drives are rarely new. This is the way the technology has gone since I arrived here.
Contrast that with the stupid 1Tb Western Digital drive I bought the other year. Never worked. Until I came to Korea, WD drives never failed. I still have a ten-year-old WD 160Gb portable that works, even though the USB situation has changed since then. And back at home in the UK, I always bought WD and never. had. any. issues. with them.
That last one, however, I refused to exchange at the time because hey, if it fails you have to send it to their office in Malaysia (!!!) at your own expense (by which they mean by international courier, of course). Which meant that to get a replacement would cost more than buying the original, and when confronted by that and having therefore wasted the money on a dead loss, I ordered a replacement from Seagate and WTF, no. trouble. ever.
So this time it will be another Seagate, at a fair price, twice the size of the previous one, which has filled up to about 85% in the space of three years. Well, I can’t imagine why, of course, it’s another great Mystery of Asia… but in particular, I really think it’s about time to drain my fifteen-plus years of e-mails from Yahoo, which seems to have gone so far downhill (and seems to have become some kind of disgusting NWO shill, if much of its so-called “news” is anything to go by). That, however, is currently just under 290Gb in size, and it will have to be dumped somewhere, and if I decide to dump my Facebook, too… well, you can see where this is leading.
As for the cancer front, unbelievably (for an English bod like me) the next blood test is scheduled for Guy Fawkes’ Night – November 5th! The day when a pre-Elizabethan crowd failed to blow up the old Houses of Parliament with King James actually in attendance. That’s on a Monday, too; time to book a day off in advance! But as always, I’ll let all two of my readers know what happens…
1: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/23/near-infrared-led-lighting.aspx
Cancer Diary: Update 2018-08-08
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary
As it happens, I made my way to Daegu yesterday evening, happening to be at the station shortly before the KTX departed from Jinju, which is turning out to be something of a pain for travel, as I live in the extreme north of the town, whereas the train station is some distance out to the south in an area which is currently being developed; somewhere in between is the bus station, but every time I go there, the buses are already fully booked. This is what happens when you cannot afford a car!!!
It turned out to be an evening of minor pleasures and pains: I got down to the Kyeongbuk National University Hospital area and decided for practical reasons to book in to the Mellow Yellow motel first, and here was a pleasant surprise: cheaper rooms available for ₩40,000 a night. I didn’t stay in for long because I was hungry, and made my way across to where the Pasta & Burger restaurant was – or rather, used to be; it was locked up!
Thereafter, I thought: “Hmm, what about the WaBar?” – so I made my way there, but even using Google Maps on the cell phone, it couldn’t be located, because it, too, was no more.
Finally, I thought: “Well, the sausages and chips at the Brewer’s Brothers are not amazing, but I do know that it’s still there.” – and it was. So I ordered said sausies and chips, and washed them down with three bottles of Chat Noir French cider (I shouldn’t, but…). Then made my way back to the motel, which by this time was quite a way.
That was when the fun began: very often, since my body started settling down in the post-operative phase, the urge to let it all out falls late at night rather than preferentially during an earlier hour of the day. It kept me up until about 2:00 a.m., so I didn’t get a lot of sleep before the alarm got me up, but in the morning I had plenty of time to complete relieving myself before hitting the subway to the hospital.
I actually had to wait about an hour before being dragged into the Professor’s consulting room, but we had a fairly lengthy discussion about how I had been feeling and the fact that I had been experiencing a quite strong reaction to the Lopmin muscle relaxant, so that I had to reduce dosage to a virtual minimum to avoid shitting dry, fossilised wood… he in turn told me that the only real concern based upon the previous set of test results was that my Vitamin D level was very low. I pointed out to him that I was taking some quite strong Canadian oil capsules for the Vitamin D, but he said that sunlight exposure would be more important (as Vitamin D is synthesised in the skin when exposed to sunlight).
Food-wise, red meats are apparently no longer frowned upon (as according to him, newer research has cast doubt upon their presumed link to carcinogenesis) and as these are a good source of cholesterol (which is very important, because Vitamin D is also synthesised from cholesterol), and I was definitely doing the right thing abstaining mostly from the stodgy work meals and taking vitamin supplements. I need to get more exercise, more sunlight and eat, therefore, food containing more Vitamin D precursors to make them available in the skin; and lose more weight.
The next test appointment was made for November, and the Professor apologised for not forwarding materials to me for his proposed review of the surgical method, but excused himself due to the recent death of an elderly relative. I again reminded him that I need some materials such as photos, diagrams, and information before I could do as promised, then bade him goodbye until the next time, and stepped out to get my blood samples taken…
The next port of call was my former office up the road and getting them up to date on what I had been up to, what had been happening and what they also had been doing. Not surprisingly, they were only running a weekday course as there had not been enough prospective students for any of the weekend courses; one student was unable to do her video presentation due to some unspecified illness. Again, I bid my ex-manager Jamie goodbye until November and made my way back to the subway, and thence to the East Daegu train station for the journey home.
Alas, the minor pleasures and pains had not ceased yet: I was too early and the next KTX to Jinju was not for another three hours!!! So I got the ticket and then walked down the concourse to see where I could sit comfortably while I was waiting. Holly’s was the place, so I got a coffee and dug out my charger to keep the phone going while I hit Facebook on a dodgy wifi link.
After returning to Jinju, I got a taxi back to the local Top Mart and bought some meat, yoghurt and other stuff, and then picked up some more cider on the way. My intention was certainly to hit the sack early tonight, but make sure that I was going to sleep!
Next week, I will be back in work, trying to avoid falling asleep because there will probably be no lessons until the end of the month and a lot of the “work” therefore involves sitting down at my desk; no doubt co-worker Jonathan will have some pithy observations about the period of my absence. Results from the latest batch of tests will be due soon, who knows, maybe by Friday. So now, I’m waiting.
Cancer Diary: Update 2018-08-03
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, General, Living in Korea
Time for another one…
Three months (almost) since the last update, as we head towards the second quarterly blood sampling (which falls next Wednesday, how nice to have it during a vacation!), it’s probably a good time to take stock of the whole situation. What has been happening over the last three months?
Firstly, it has been difficult settling in to my new job, to the extent that I am already starting to think about what comes next. The reason for this was that the spring semester was so fragmented – we arrived here (co-worker Jonathan and I) pretty much in the dark about what was happening, and there were constant interruptions to lessons due to things like mass medical examinations and a week-long training exercise in Jeju which we only found out about relatively late in the proceedings; by the end of the semester, my scheduling was a mess. I have no desire for that to be repeated when the new semester begins in September.
Speaking of which, despite actually being in the middle of my vacation as I sit here typing this, I have already had to go in to the office three times in the last two weeks due to only belatedly being informed about writing up the new schedule for the fall semester. These (there are two: one for writing and one for speaking, as each class has two lessons each week) were completed last night, and it was hardly taxing (bearing in mind that later changes, i.e. during the semester itself, are expected, and after the way the last semester went, I can certainly believe it), but as we both (Jonathan and I) agreed, we could have put it all together in less than a day, at least two or three weeks ago; he (Jonathan) was actually on vacation in Thailand when he started getting text messages about it last week! As my spatial relationship with our office is less than optimal due to the public transport here, this is especially annoying (as I do not have my own car, of course) – the most convenient bus, which takes me actually into the base, comes only once every hour.
Another thing is that since the vacation is an extended period (due to having an extra five days of “business trip” allocated just before it began), I have been slipping back into my nocturnal habits, as I have never been a “morning person”, but with about nine more days to go I am getting up earlier to re-condition myself back into the necessary timeframe.
The big surprise (perhaps) is just how much sleep I have been needing during this vacation. There is little doubt in my mind that the stressful combination of having (and then paying for) the operation, being fired and having to find both a new job and new accommodation during the convalescence period all whilst already in the new job and planning and executing lessons has left me drained, but again, both Jonathan and I have been complaining about the fact that in too much of our non-teaching time, we have been essentially left to our own devices, and since we really only need maybe two lesson plans per week, this has led to a lot of thumb-twiddling (in his case, playing his favourite game on his Alienware laptop; in my case, reading e-books; in both cases, often falling asleep at our desks). This is a terrible waste of time, not to mention the fact that it is so unhealthy.
On the other hand, health-wise, things have felt fine: no pain, I am usually awake and alert with little tiredness after a mug of rocket-fuel fresh coffee in the morning. However, this lifestyle makes weight loss difficult, so I am increasingly trying to cut things out, especially wheat-based and other starchy products, as I may not have much opportunity normally to exercise them off. Another disadvantage of this new position is that the food given in the restaurant often has a high energy content, as it is intended for younger service staff who are expected to maintain a much higher exercise level; consequently, I have reduced the number of visits to the canteen.
Paradoxically, my main ‘issue’ seems to be the minimal medication prescribed for me by the Professor: the Lopmin capsules, to which my gut seems quite sensitive, to such an extent that, firstly, I had to reduce regular dosage to the minimum possible (one cap at a time), and secondly, with the obvious dehydration to be expected during a hot Korean summer, approaching weekends normally see me come off the medication temporarily so that I can empty my bowel properly. This has become a problem and I will have to mention it to the Professor next Wednesday; recall that the reason for the medication is to help the resected bowel stretch and slowly normalise its function (thus avoiding the need for frequent visits to the bathroom). Also, although in this situation additional dietary fibre should be advised, in practice this has often led to excessive loosening of the bowel (and too many visits to the bathroom), so I am also being careful not to consume too much fibrous food regularly.
Since the bowel has effectively become a trap for digested food due to this medication, there is also a ‘feedback’ sensation which recalls one of the symptoms experienced prior to the removal of the tumour: a feeling of nausea due to the backlog of partially-digested food, which has also been putting me off eating somewhat, which actually cannot be a bad thing – after all, if you are overweight, you can be pretty sure that in most cases, it’s due to (a) eating too much, (b) not enough exercise or (c) both. Something to bear in mind…
Another thing to bear in mind is that as well as reducing the amount of unnecessary biochemical energy (as sugar), there are also dangers inherent in consuming too much protein regularly. As it happens, another mail from Joe Mercola slurped its way into my Inbox overnight (1) and in it, he discusses the excess foods to avoid, the reasons why you should do so, and the benefits of intermittent fasting, something I have been trying to do but the medication seems to be getting in the way, as its action leads to accumulation of digested food in the remanent large intestine and difficulty in voiding it, making my abdomen alternately swell and contract. I have, however, been reducing the amount of yoghurt in my diet, which I was consuming in large quantities as soon after the operation as circumstances would allow (essentially for a convenient form of digestible protein), but the disadvantage is that most mass-manufactured yoghurts are firstly largely devoid of the fat content of a traditional yoghurt (due to the food industry’s reaction to Ancel Keys’ flawed research)(2) and secondly, to compensate for the alleged lack of flavour of fat-depleted yoghurts, due to the addition of digestible sugar, which nowadays, I presume, is largely fructose, which brings terrible effects of its own (3).
An additional point we might bear in mind is that a number of online health advisors (for example, Joel Marion (4) and Mike Geary (5)) have been pointing for years at the digestible carbohydrate content of dairy products as a possible reason why many people seem unable to lose weight and keep it lost. This is probably because of too much focus on glucose when there is in fact a variety of digestible saccharides coming into the body from a variety of foodstuffs; the focus on just glucose is therefore illogical and misdirected.
Anyway, I am feeling okay and looking forward to a brief trip back to Daegu next week for the blood sampling and a discussion of things with the Prof., and in the following two weeks I shall be back in the office. Hopefully, several issues will be resolved by then – a set of four new bookcases to be delivered from Gmarket (after an erroneous attempted purchase of cupboard doors without the attendant bookcases to which they were supposed to be attached – it can be difficult to extract information from Gmarket web pages sometimes!) and a few other bits and pieces. But I remain confident.
1: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/03/too-much-protein.aspx
2: See, for example: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/12/07/saturated-fat-cholesterol-heart-disease.aspx
3: Take a look at: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/08/01/liver-damage-growing-epidemic.aspx
4: For example, http://transformationinsider.com
5: For example, http://www.truthaboutabs.com/good-carbs-bad-carbs.html (but see the whole site)
