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.

Tonsil infection

As a result of CT scan, my doctor informed me that my left tonsil has bacterial infection, which has been causing light fever for 2 weeks. I'm glad to know the cause of my mysterious fever finally, and nothing like a recurrence of cancer, but I wondered if my doctor could have figured it out without CT scan. I really don't want any more radiation, if possible.

Now I'm on antibiotics for a week, hopefully my fever will all go away by then.

Give me no more radiation...please!

Light fever and...refashion!

Last week, as I've posted on my blog, I felt like running so I ran for about 20 minutes. Then next day, I went out to play badminton with the co-workers at my old work place for 2 hours. These ladies are super energetic and don't know how to stop! Anyhow, I was exhausted when I got home after the badminton practice, then when the mysterious light fever started in that night.

The temperature started around 37.2 C...then it occasionally went up to 37.6 C as maximum, but my body temperature stayed around 37 C for days. I was supposed to go to Nagano again this Tuesday to conduct research, but I decided to postpone, and went to the hospital instead.

It also was not a very lucky day for me to visit the hospital. I waited for 1 hour for blood test (the nurse forgot to call me actually), another 2 hours to see the doctor, went back to the lab for additional blood test, but the nurse at the lab said I don't need to take additional one, so I went to cashier, then cashier told me that I still need to get additional blood test, so I had to go back to the lab again...etcetc, which took additional 1.5 hour or so. So when my mom and I got out of the hospital, our parking said we were at the hospital for 6 hours!! It was the same length of wait time as the opening day of the newest attraction at Tokyo Disney Sea, Toy Story Mania.

I also went to take CT scan again, just to make sure that the fever is not caused by the recurrence of cancerous cells. CT scan is also not fun, with all the contrast medium, having to skip meal, and additional radiation.

Next week I will go into the hospital again to hear the results from the CT scan.

----

Although I was dizzy from my light fever, I had extra time in my hand. Then I came across really cool blog called Refashionista. Basically this creative lady turns donated clothes into wonderful new clothes and blogs about it. She was so cool and I was so inspired that I decided to try out some refashioning of clothes that I got from my mom and my mom's friends:

Comfortable fabric but awkward length...

Yay!!

My image was making something like this on the magazine :P

Occasionally I would trim the length of skirts or pants I buy, but I never went further than that. This time I went ahead and made a ribbon belt ;)

One year anniversary

On my passport, I have immigration stamp that shows entering Narita, Japan on July 9th, 2011. It's been exactly one year since I got back to Japan for cancer treatment! I feel that time passed by quite fast, faster than usual, especially since I have lost time during chemo treatment.

Remembering chemo
The other day I had to look through medical bills and prescription lists for some purposes. Well, honestly, I couldn't really 'look through', and I could only glance at it, because apparently my body still remembers the names of the enemies who gave great suffering few months ago. I was nauseated.

Ever since I acquired peace in mind and busy time for few months, I sometimes forget what I had gone through. But such reaction of my body tells me what I experienced was indeed significant. I need to remember how lucky I am to be here. When I think that way, nausea from Pavlovian effect doesn't seem that bad.


One year anniversary memorial run
I finally felt like running today. I used to run once a week or so before I found out about lymphoma, but I hadn't run at all since then. Since the weather was nice, I changed to running wear, put my sneakers on, and got out of the house.
I ran for about 2 km, which is short, but enough for my first run in past one year. What's more important is continuing the run. Studies show that frequent exercise reduces chances of falling to cancer. Since I know how wonderful it is to go through cancer treatment, recurrence of cancer is my nightmare. I'm going to run at least once a week, rest of my life.