There were many days in the past 2 years (oh my gosh!) that I thought of my health, what happened to my body, and then posting to this blog. I have indeed been extremely busy, and fortunately I have been able to survive doctorate study with no critical condition on my health. I am here today because I had a very last appointment with my doctor at Tsukuba University Hospital. The remission period of Hodgkin's lymphoma is 5 years, and this month marks 5 years since the completion of chemotherapy. I had a CT scan 2 weeks ago, and I got to hear the result today. The overall conclusions to the result of the CT scan was negative (phew!). However, technicians made many comments about what they observed from my CT scan image, like my larger than average sized spleen, but it's not something I should be concerned of, my doctor said, because it's the same size as 5 years ago. Anyhow, it was a good after all!
What does this mean to me now?
Now I don't have to go to Tsukuba University Hospital occasionally for checkups. Since my thyroid hormone still needs some medical attention, I will be going to a local clinic to check my hormonal level every few months, but other than that I will no longer need a special medical attention.
Am I back to normal?
Well, I no longer know what "normal" means. I am grateful to be where I am now, and I am able to spend my daily life almost to the fullest. I say "almost" because of 2 reasons. One, I still experience fatigue occasionally, and this I believe is from the treatment I received. Regardless of how much I wanted to get my work done, when my body is fatigued, I just cannot do it. The second reason is shared by everybody else in the world. We all have ups and downs, regardless of how much we want everyday to be sunny with a sunshine. When there's a day where nothing works right, you just have to let the day go and chill. I feel like.
What am I up to?
I just had a pre-defense of my PhD thesis last week, fortunately I passed, and I have a first thesis draft submission due next month. After PhD, I don't know what I want to do yet. But I'm not really in that hurry, I'm just waiting for all the thesis craziness to go away before I make a good decision for myself.
Will this be the last post?
I don't know. There are many things I wanted to put up on this blog, so maybe in the future if I have the time and in the mood of writing, I will certainly write a post again.
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| My hair has exceeded what I used to have; I have more hair than before! |
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| It's a beautiful fall in Japan!! |
