Back to UW Hall Health

My sweet sweet roommate decorated our apartment with awesome bouquet! So sweet!!

Tomorrow is the end of second week of Autumn quarter at University of Washington! It was fast, but it was quite a bumpy road; I seemed to have caught cold as soon as I arrived Seattle, and my fever did not leave until the end of last week. Indeed, even now, when I get home tired from school my temperature is slightly higher than my average temperature.

There's a saying in Japanese, "body is honest" meaning human body expresses its health condition quite sensitively according to the environment. Whenever my temperature is up, it reminds me of that saying. There were few moments that I felt like maybe I'm not ready to be back at school. I felt like my body was punishing me for coming back to the States. Luckily I'm a lot better than last week, although I still need to be careful not to catch cold or work too hard.

Today I got to be back to UW Hall Health to see a nurse practitioner, who then referred me to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA). Well, I don't know how referral usually works in the U.S. but when I said a nurse referred me, all she did was hand me a phone number to SCCA, which is also available online at seattlecca.org. Fortunately I was able to make an appointment at SCCA within few hours after my visit to the Hall Health, and it's scheduled to be next week Wednesday.

Although it was over one year ago when I first visited UW Hall Health for my swollen left neck, somehow I didn't have any emotional experience when I went there today. I was indifferent; perhaps I was trying not to think about it too much. I was also a bit nervous; it was a similar feeling I had when I visit the hospital in Japan.

Decision making for mind and body health

I had an appointment with my doctor this morning, to hear the results of ultrasound test. The result report produced by ultrasound technician indicated that the lymph nodes may be lymphomas. However, there was no size change of all nodes, and I have no symptoms(1) that show the sign of lymphoma growth; therefore, my doctor thinks that it is unlikely that lymphoma is back.

And my doctor didn't have much idea about the cause of my light fever. He said he never had a patient who experienced continual light fever 3 months after cancer treatments. Although antibiotics won't work on light fevers, he prescribed them in case that the bacterial infection on my tonsil was still active.

The question comes to, am I ready to go back to Seattle? My doctor said just go ahead and if there's any problem I should just come back to Japan. My mom is worried and I understand that. I'm worried, too. But I think not going back to school this autumn will stress me out even more...I can swear that I am not forcing myself to go back. That's for sure. This is what I want to do, and this seems to be the best option available for my body and mind.

I was really hoping that when I get to go back to Seattle, that's the time when I can throw "I kicked the cancer's butt" party, which I saw many cancer survivors from reading their blogs. I guess I won't be able to throw that party for another...4 years perhaps?

Traditional rice fields of Nagano (and a scarecrow made by kindergarden kids)
...I'm beginning to miss Nagano already!

(1) The symptoms that shows the sign of Hodgkin's disease are:

1. High fever (>38 C)
2. Night sweat
3. Weight loss

Ups and downs

Railway on the bridge of
Bessho line in Nagano

I have been very active for the past few weeks, considering where I've been and what I've been up to. However, my body has not been very cooperative unfortunately...I had a light fever last night again. For the past few weeks, I had lots of ups and downs. I feel good one day like a normal person, and the next day I feel sick. I believe my immune system is still not back to normal.

The new academic year of the University of Washington is starting on 24th of September. As of now, my plan is to get back to Seattle next week, and get ready for the school opening. I am nervous of my health condition, but I also don't know how long I should wait. Yes, I agree that my health should be priority, but my quality of life is as important.

People used to tell me that there is a long way to go in my life that there's nothing to rush. I agree that there's nothing to rush, but recently I've been feeling that human life is really short.I want to get back to Seattle to continue on my education again, even if I have to take it slowly.

Next week I get to hear the results of my ultrasound exam from last week. Unless there is anything urgent or serious, I am going to get on the flight back to Seattle.

My doctor suggested that I find a doctor in Seattle in case of emergency. Also, since he suggests that I take ultrasound exam every 3 months or so, so I think I will be back in Japan again in December.

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.