The word, 'cancer'

Winter sunset is my favorite view of the year.

Cancer. 癌。ガン。

The phonetic of the word (especially in Japanese) alone darkens one's feeling, but this word seems to bring much greater fear than it really should. The Chinese characters appears frightening, too. Why do they look and sound scary? Perhaps because there is no wonder drug for cancer (like any other sickness has perfect remedy). Or because its cause is uncertain (like the cause any other sickness is certain). Or because most people know someone who has fallen ill with cancer. Or perhaps because cancer is widely advertised?  

I think I understand the fear, but after going through the treatments for cure, I feel that the despair is somewhat overrated. The number one cause of death in the world is not even cancer (it's ischaemic heart disease). And there are many survivors. But maybe because the word, cancer, inevitably reminds much of the end of life. 

These discussions were going through my head as it has been difficult for me to determine who I should inform about my situation, and how much information I should give out. And I realized that I have a tendency to not use the word 'cancer' when I tell people, because of the reasons I've written earlier. I do hope to increase the awareness of the importance of periodic health examination for earlier detection of diseases, but not necessarily Hodgkin disease alone. There are million other diseases in the world, which makes it impossible for people to worry about every one of them. Nevertheless, letting others know about what I have been going through, should alarm others that living a healthy life is never normal, and they should pay attention to their own health.

Life is busy, and life may be short, depending on how you think about it. But I certainly felt my life being short when I was diagnosed with lymphoma. It's not healthy to worry too much about health, but it's always good to be up to date about your own body. Go take medical exam if you haven't in past few years, at least just for me!

Radiotherapy 4 + 5 ...unsalted life and burned skin, but it's done!!

I went to see a panda with Jiro a few days ago to Ueno zoo. She was not very friendly :P

Jiro was visiting me for the past two weeks, which had been very nice to have him around. The bad news is that sadly he left yesterday, but the good news is that I finished all my scheduled treatments yesterday!! My next appointment is in two weeks, where I will discuss with my doctor for evaluations and I'm hoping to know when I will be released.

Unsalted life
About three weeks ago I realized that nothings was tasting yummy. Everything I ate tasted bitter or tasteless. I first thought that either my mom messed up the food or restaurants weren't cooking well anymore. But I was the wrong one. The radiation also reached my tongue and parts of my tongue was burned (confirmed by my doctor), which made me taste food funny. The other day I ate a ramen noodle, which I didn't taste anything for the soup. Since the soup was soy sauce based, I concluded that the taste I'm lacking is the saltiness. Life without salt is very unpleasant, especially since I enjoy eating a lot. On the other hand, it has been quite interesting to find out how much salts are in every food. Now I'm using my tongue as a salt detector (not a very good one though, haha). My burned tongue is expected to be healed in about 1~2 weeks..I hope it'll be back sooner!

Burned skin
As for my other body condition, I had a light fever last week, but I also learned that the fever was caused by my burned skin. Because the radiation also passes my left armpit, my left armpit was suffering greatly from severe burns. There were few days that I couldn't lift my left arm. Currently most of my burned skins on my left armpit and both sides of my neck were peeled off, and I don't have any pain. I never had a sunburn in my life, so it reminds me once again, how intense the radiation is.

Radiotherapy week 3

A Happy New Year!
I wish the year of 2012 will bring hopes and joys to all of you.

The first radiotherapy appointment of the year of 2012 was on January 4th. I was feeling quite well over the short 'winter break' I had from the therapy, but as soon as the therapy resumed, throat sore, light fevers and light nausea also came back. I discussed my symptoms with my doctor, and he said they may be from radiotherapy, or they could simply be cold. I was also guessing that my symptoms may be from Pavlovian effect caused by the past chemotherapy madness, but I'm not sure.

Radiotherapy and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)

I guess I still am an engineer. Despite the side effects, radiotherapy stimulates much more interests than chemotherapy. First of all, the radiotherapy machine is as overwhelming as CT scan machine, and it has a large arm that rotates to aim X-ray correctly to my body. The machine reminds me greatly of XRD machine. I feel like a test sample in XRD when I'm being exposed to X-ray.

During the treatment, I am fixed in place on a stage by a plastic cover unique to my face that fits perfectly (Left image). Again, it's like fixing a sample on the stage for XRD machine! It's nice to be excited about the treatment, although I'm sure it'll still be even nicer to be done.

"Wakame-Chan" Hair

I am exposed to X-ray radiation from both from front and back of my body. Currently the area exposed to radiation is quite large and it is schedule to minimize and pin down the area starting from mid next week. Because lower back of my head is also exposed to strong radiation, I felt burn-like pain and started shedding around that area like crazy last week. I no longer have the burning pain but now I have close to no hair on the lower back of my head. My sister said my hair could look like a cartoon character, Wakame-Chan (Right image) if I cut my hair shorter. I believe this is a rare opportunity to look just like her, but I declined my sister's suggestion.

Radiotherapy week 2

Happy Holidays to everyone!!!

I am slight a bit delayed in my greeting, but I hope everyone is enjoying this festive time of the year with their family and friends.

My throat started to give me discomfort later last week, and today it's beginning to give me pain when I swallow. I go to the hospital every weekday for the radiotherapy, but I no longer feel nausea. It's either I somehow overcame the fear of the hospital of it was just a cold I had last week. (Although I still do not wish to imagine myself going through chemotherapy ever again...) With the healthy mind and soul, I have been spending my day like a normal young woman taking a break from busy life, doing whatever I feel like doing, which has been filled with spontaneity, restfulness, and excitement. Spending time according to your will and feel is such a luxurious time. Time is more than just money.

お地蔵様
(Jizo, a guardian deity of
transportation safety)
was wearing a knit cap!!  

Last week I went to a friend's house in Tokyo with my family to attend a holiday party. It was my first and the last time to visit Tokyo in the year of 2011. I used to go to Tokyo often to visit friends or attend events when I'm in Japan, but this time Tokyo seemed much further away than I've ever felt before. Because I still get tired easily, I was excited for the party but at the same time anxious that I may not make it through the party.

Fortunately, I was able to make it to most part of the party. It was a lot of food, sweets, and laughter. It reminded me how fun it is to spend time with friends and family. Special thanks to Sakurai family :)

Please stay warm, everyone. And spend rest of the 2011 with minimum amounts of regret, to welcome the new coming year.

よいお年をお迎えください。

Radiotherapy week 1

Lunar eclipse on 12/10/2011

Radiotherapy has been alright so far. It's better than chemotherapy for sure, but it's not a fun experience still. I wish all treatments are exciting in some way that it could reduce psychological stress on patients.

Each appointment of radiotherapy takes about 15 minutes, where the 1 minute is used for actually radiating my body, and rest of the time is spent for preparation of the machine. Fortunately, there has been no long waiting time involved for radiotherapy; radiology department knows how to schedule patients well :P

There is no pain involved in the therapy, but it maybe because I caught cold or more from psychological stress from being at hospital everyday that I have been feeling noxious all week.

Although I am scheduled to be at the hospital on the weekdays, I realized that I won't have any full consecutive 5 days that I have to go to the hospital. Next week there's a holiday for Emperor's birthday, then the week after is new year's break that the hospital is closed. I hope my nausea will disappear completely soon and no side effects appear at all, so that I can be in the festive mood soon!