1st doctor's appointment at Tsukuba University Hospital

Tsukuba University Hospital is the largest hospital near my home. Here I'm going to highlight what happened at Tsukuba University Hospital (TUH from now on), and my progress on curing Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Long waiting time

My mom and I entered and submitted a request of visit form with a referral letter to the admin desk of TUH at 9:30 am on Tuesday. The desks open at 9 am but it was full of patients already. I had a so-called "reservation" to see a doctor at sometimes in AM (apparently you can only reserve to be seen on AM or PM :p), but when I finally got to see the doctor, it was past 1 pm. I saw him for about 15 minutes. Yukari (a friend) said "that's like Disneyland's ride." I agreed.

Lack of privacy

One thing I felt strongly from this visit was a lack of privacy. When an admin lady at the clinical desk explained about the process of hospitalization, she was standing in the middle of waiting room, where people were listening quietly from 1 m away. Also when I went to submit paperwork for hospitalization to some sort of office within TUH, people could see and hear that I will be hospitalized, when and where. I'm not sure if I have this perspective because I've been living in the States for a long time?

Progress on Hodgkin's

The doctor first apologized for not wearing a formal uniform due to the whole cool biz in Japan. He was wearing a polo shirt and slacks. Here are the gist of what I learned from the first visit:

• Hodgkin's disease is rare for Japanese (only around 10 % of Japanese lymphoma patients are diagnosed with Hodgkin's)
• There is a standard treatment plan (標準治療法) for Hodgkin's lymphoma, set by Ministry of Health of some sort, which means the treatment should be the same anywhere available in Japan
• The itch I had been experiencing all over my body may be one of the symptom of Hodgkin's
• It will take around 6 months for the whole treatment plan
• The treatment will be a combination of chemotherapy and radiation
• I will be hospitalized for the first cycle of chemotherapy for a couple of days, but depending on my condition, I may be able to commute from home for rest of the cycles

Although I'm not Japanese by blood, I heard Hodgkin's is more common among ethnic backgrounds other than Asian.