Living in an Ealing comedy

Am having some issues with the laptop tonight, or this would have been updated hours ago. Everything is moving veeeeeryyy sllllooowwly. As I am unable to sleep despite the blue bomber I took an hour ago and the horse-pill sized painkillers, I seem to have time to work it all through, though. Ah, always that silver lining.

You know, my sarcastic tone sounds kinda like my regular tone.

Re-reading yesterday's post makes me rather shame-faced. What an embarrassingly ungracious compilation of complaint! I shall endeavour to do better, and yet keep authenticity. That is the way I was feeling yesterday; I hadn't realised the extent of the negativity until I looked at it through this morning's eyes. I hadn't seen the churlishness of it until I was in the ward this afternoon.

It was day three of chemo today, and the experience was somewhat rougher than usual. The cranky lady at the international clinic was away ill, and she would have proven helpful despite the scowling. The hospital was heaving with people, far busier than I have seen it. The oncologist was rushed and I wasn't able to make my questions clear. The poor receptionist was frustrated and flustered- the first time I'd seen anything less than cool professionalism from anyone. The bloke on the other end of the telephone from her when she was trying to book the MRI was interrupting and uncooperative, and she was visibly biting her tongue. Rivulets of sweat trickled down her face; her teeth were gritted. After many attempts to clarify her meaning about my next appointments (MRI on Monday, August 5th, ultrasound -called a 'sona'- on August the 8th, as well as a meeting with the oncologist and the surgeon to go through the tests and hopefully schedule the operation; believe me, it took twenty minutes to get us both to this stage in the conversation) she gave up and called for help from an English speaking teller. We all get along fine. There are just days that are tougher than others.

I realise that any semblance of privacy or discretion I may be hoping for is evaporating while conversations between all these folks transpire. They are held at volume in Korean, and I am the only one who has no idea what they are talking about, apart from the occasional loud 'breast!' or 'chemotherapy', both of which make me feel a bit exposed. Little old men eye me up through suspicious eyes, and today started leaping in to help translate. I wander from pillar to post in a state of bemusement and oblivion. I am just so foreign.

The first stop of the day was at the Foreign Clinic, where I found CICL was away. I need to communicate a request from my UK insurance company to her, so I was disappointed not to see her. I registered with them anyway, and was sent to the blood collection room downstairs. At least, I think it was downstairs. I am getting pretty adept at locating rooms through the catacombs of the hospital, and that's one of the nice ones, as it has English signage. Not all of them do: the pharmacy does not, for example. Many rooms I only recognise once I am in the door, which causes many of the occupants to shoot baleful looks at me when I walk in, give the space a quick glance and make a quicker retreat.

The collection room was busier than last week, and I decided there that photos were not likely going to feature today. The techies down there are my favourites when it comes to needles, apart from the guy who gives me the radioactive shots, but that's because he's a bit dishy and I am me. They take three or four vials of blood, and I barely even bruise.

I had an hour to wait, so picked up a coffee and my knitting (I say that like I 'have' knitting. Do not be impressed. So far, it is a rectangle that may turn into a square. That is all we are likely to get out of it.) I called Ann to get her out of bed because she's a teenager and then toddled up to see the oncologist.

As I said, she was harried today. She had a bit of a grope of the breast, and thinks that it is still reducing in size. I noted the same thing- it does not feel as tight and hard under my skin, but it still seems firmly planted directly behind the nipple. This does not make me happy, as it means I will probably lose it. The last time I mentioned reconstruction to the surgeon, he poo-pooed the idea, as the breast is so small anyway (Ah, it's just a GRAND thing, a conversation about my bosoms with that man!) That was when he still thought that he might be able to save the nipple, though. I will be having a conversation with the CICL about whether the insurance would cover a patch up job. If not, well, I will be saving up.

Dr Lee hurriedly went back through the plan with me. MRI on the breast and the 'sona', then the meeting with her and the surgeon. At this point, I asked whether the MRI would be just of the breast, or whether it would take in the uterus as well. She looked puzzled.

O: The uterus?
P: Yes, since the surgeon wants to do the hysterectomy at the same time.
O: Is there something on your uterus?
P: (Stifling a groan of despair- and Les, I know. I know.) Yes, there is a growth that he decided he wanted to remove with a hysterectomy during the same operation that the lump is removed.
O: Oh, no, no. I don't recommend that.
P: (Dreading the thought of having to go in twice.) Well, you should talk to him about it, as it was his idea.
O: I will call him now.
Phone call, rapid chat, 'Chadwick' 'chemotherapy,' 'breast', 'hysterectomy', etc...
O: (putting down the phone) He will do hysterectomy at same time as the mastectomy.
P: THE WHAT??
O: (back-pedaling) Oh, oh, no. When he take away tumour!!
P: The LUMPectomy???
O: Yes, yes, just the lump.
P: (pant, pant, pant)

I asked whether the doctor would give me a definite surgery date. She indicated that the timetable for surgery is still not certain. If the scans show that the tumour is not reducing quickly enough, she will order more chemo first. Even then, the date for surgery will be dependent on when the surgeon fancies doing it. So I still don't know when it will be, and still can't give mum a definite date to come over. {Am also starting to make plans for Annie's 18th. Be a right cow if I didn't manage to make that one, wouldn't it?}

We parted on good terms, with me heading towards the receptionist to confirm dates for the next tests, and to head to my treatment. Except no one said anything about the treatment, and whether I was supposed to go straight up for it. In fact, from the way they were talking, it began to seem like I wasn't going to have it after all. By the time the dates and times were agreed and changed and agreed again, and I'd been ushered down to radiation to talk through preparing for the MRI, everyone but me appeared to have forgotten it entirely. This caused huge confusion when I tried to ask about it, and eventually they took me back to the oncologist, insisting that I was done for the day. No, she said, you should go for chemo now. I raised my hand gratefully, and she actually gave me a high-five at finally getting it all ironed out. I was astonished.

I was convinced that I needed to pick up meds at the pharmacy (Yes, another boat load of those little blue beauties) before heading up, and tried to inquire. But no, they said, when they finally realised what I was asking, go straight to the ladies at the cancer centre, who duly turned me around and sent me straight back to the pharmacy. At least this time I was spared the weigh-in.

The treatment room was heaving today. There were even some people hooked up to the IVs out in the waiting room, the beds were in such short supply. The techies like putting me to sleep for some reason, if the size of the tranquiliser I am made to swallow is anything to go by, so I always get a bed.

I was surrounded by some very noisy patients this time; the first time it was anything other than calm and peaceful. One man must have been receiving his injection somewhere both private and painful, as the curtain was drawn around his bed and the groans that emerged from behind it were loud enough to fill the room. There was a woman two beds down- the first one I've seen totally bald- who also looked like she was in a bad way. She was younger than I am by about ten years, I think. Her husband was never more than ten feet from her, even when the doctors were tending to her. They both looked practised. There was a different doctor looking after her, and again the IV seemed to be in awkward place. The two times he came to adjust her tubes and bottles, he was meticulous about using his gloves and ensuring that nothing touched any potentially contaminated surface. Her cries were feeble, but pained. After he had finished his ministrations, she lay weakly panting, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling, her husband silent beside her.

Her discomfort was echoed in the elderly ladies nearby. One must have been eighty if she was a day, and after waking from her sleep, she hunched herself over her hips, folded in half and grimacing against her pain. The diminutive grandmother in the bed at the foot of mine hid her face in her hands for much of her stay, clench-jawed and muttering at her son and husband when they wandered in, but plaintively shouting 'Seungsangnim!' (Doctor/ professor) at the top of her voice throughout the afternoon.

Across the room, there was the thinnest man I have ever seen. He also had lost all his hair, and his skin was draped and stretched like bleached leather over his fine, narrow bones. He wore a tracksuit despite the mugginess of the day. His IV seemed to be a stint. He, too, looked long-practised at these procedures, and endured the adjustments of his needles and bags with tight-lipped stoicism, before eventually wandering weakly out with a smile for the technicians.

As for me, I had the bottles and bags and envelopes and a long sleep; all reasonable comfort, and no greater pain than the occasional twinge of the needle or the chill as new fluid ran in my veins. Tonight, I am a little weary from the late night last night, and a bit dehydrated from the treatment. However, I am also somewhat chastised by what I saw in that room this afternoon. I have been getting off so easily with the treatment, and today saw again that I have been very, very fortunate.