Olympians, ultrasound result, another light fever, and another injured man in the lab

My heart pounded when I saw Kitajima so close!!

First of all, yes, I was one of the 500,000 people that rushed to Ginza last Monday (well, I was actually near there to run some errands as well) to see Olympians parade! It was SO crowded...I waited for 30 minutes, which wasn't too bad, and I got to see almost everyone I wanted to see so that was super exciting!


Last Friday I went in to the hospital to have my second ultrasound exam, then this week I got to hear the results. I thought this was going to be my last visit to the hospital in Japan for awhile, hopefully shake hands with my doctor and say "see you next year" (because I remember him saying that after all these I would just be checking my body once a year with him).  Unfortunately, it wasn't the case.

All my lymph nodes, or more like lymphomas, though they appear hyperechoic and inactive, they managed to increase its number. Last month ultrasound image showed three lymph nodes, but now there are four. My doctor said there is no sign of cancerous activity, but he suggested that I do another ultrasound next month just to be sure. And since my current plan is to be back in Seattle to continue on my graduate study this fall, my doctor suggested that I have ultrasound test every 3 months when I'm in the States.

Another reason why my doctor suggests frequent checkup is because of my lack of immune strength. Light fever came back to me after the last ultrasound test, and I'm on antibiotics again. I'm feeling better now, but I need to be pretty careful not to catch another cold.

I thought my last visit to the hospital will be the decision breaker, to be determined whether I will be back in the States in September or not. Well, there seems to be nothing I can really do to be absolutely sure that my lymphoma is deactivated, I'm planning on going to the States anyway.


Oh yes, and another injury story in my lab.

We had a BBQ after semi-annual research meeting few weeks ago at the university owned farm. We got good food, good drinks, and good people to hang out with. But when some people started getting high with some beers, they started to chase each other, and one guy managed to kick another guy's balls twice during the chase. In return, the guy with pain in his crotch made a Judo move to the kicker, the kicker fell down into a small ditch from his shoulder. The fell was critical. Since he was complaining about his shoulder pain, we took him to the nearest ER, which found out that he got his right collarbone into three pieces. He was hospitalized, had a surgery, and now he's on rehab.

What a lab. Too many broken bones in such a short period of time.

Women's soccer player, Sawa san!!! She was so cute!

"Don't hurt your own body" party

A solar cell I made ;)

I'm back in Nagano again to work on research for my master's thesis. For this post, I want to share an interesting, yet somewhat disturbing (to me) experience yesterday.

Last night, I went out with a group of students from the lab I work with for a dinner. It was to celebrate the birthday of one student, who also just got discharged from a hospital. This student, I will call him student A, busted his right hand by himself from punching really hard 2 weeks ago. Nobody really seemed to know the full detail of how or why he did it, but apparently he got really angry at himself after some meeting, went ahead to the building's exit door (which was made of steels), punched extremely hard once, which broke all fingers except the thumb. Students called 911 when they saw student A with a bloody injured hand, and he was sent to a hospital, which kept him for 11 days.

Since the hospital kept him for so long, I thought he may be psychologically unstable (and I mean, he broke his own hands from anger!?) but it seemed like he was just fine, and other students also seemed to not worry about that.

At the dinner party, after he brew the candles, he told his fellows, "don't hurt your own body" as he laughed. Everyone also laughed, except myself. I was simply, sad, to hear the student A say that as a joke, and that everyone also took it as a joke. I also realized that I am not the same as before. I don't get jokes that assume that your health is eternal, at least when you are young.

Perhaps because my life was threatened at one point, and I still live in the fear or recurrence. You may be young and healthy, but you are never young forever, and if your body and soul are healthy, enjoy and live at full while you can. I know it's not easy, but please remember to appreciate that what you have may be extraordinary to some others.