Where are we now?

The weeks since the last up-beat post have been all over the shop. The surgeon back at Inha scheduled my next operation with barely a flicker of 'I told you so' on his face. I then had to start wrestling with the insurers, as the lady at the international clinic told me that I needed to do the paperwork myself for this operation, since I had sought a second opinion. This involved another trek to the hospital in Seoul where I had obtained said second opinion to ask the (previously nice and now rather cross) doctor to write down his recommendation, instead of just give it to me verbally. I am not entirely sure why he was so cranky, but I clearly annoyed him. I was then awaiting authorisation up until halfway through Thursday afternoon, and the operation is the day after tomorrow. This road feels familiar. Have I mentioned that I miss socialised medicine? Yet today?

I ought to spend some time wrapping up the last few incidents from the first hospital stay, not because they have any particular bearing on what will happen later this week, but because I said I would, and they make good stories. In all honesty, however, it all seems so long ago now. Since then, I've gone back to work, got something that feels like a promotion and signed on for another year in Korea, met a few new friends, said a sad good-bye to one who had become rather important, and now am here at home twiddling my thumbs while I wait to check in tomorrow night back at Inha. Annie has been waved off to the UK, and in typical her-fashion, has barely communicated since her arrival. Well, that's not completely true- she did forward a message from an amateur dramatic society here in Seoul. They want her to be their stage designer for their up-coming Midsummer Night's Dream. She'll have people following her orders and everything. We are, obviously, very excited.

I do not know how long I will be in hospital. I don't think it will be terribly long- if I could walk out two days after the hysterectomy, then there is no reason to imagine that I'll still be there over the weekend this time. Then I'll spend a quiet few days recovering here at the flat, have another Herceptin treatment on Boxing Day, and then fly out to Bali for the New Year. Yes, on my own. Yes, am a tad disgruntled, but know there's nowt to be done. I don't care how interesting it all looks in the movies to be a lone female traveler- it seldom is. One does not get positive stares from passers-by when one goes out to eat, and the hunt for the perfect martini just seems pathetic when one is on one's own. However, I have booked my driver, and he knows that I'm after massages and reiki and healing and shopping and the hunting down of curios. It will be fine, fun and relaxing. And to be frank, it beats SPOTS off being locked in a cabin in the woods during a snowstorm in Upstate New York, which is, of course, how I spent the whole winter break last year. Shudder. On reflection, flying solo doesn't look all that bad by comparison.

As a brief aside, while we're in a reflective kind of mood: holy cow. This year, eh? Here's hoping for a little bit more yin with 2014's yan. It might all make for interesting stories, but yikes. It would be nice not to have the story-fodder, certainly. Furthermore, I am not always sure that the stories should be told, however interesting they are. They either feel cheapened (voices in the night) or overly significant (dance practice). All I'd wanted to do was to avoid having to repeat everything twenty times when I started this up. I have ended up doing so anyway, so where's the value?

Hmph. Haven't been this chippy since stopping chemo.

Really, though, there are a few events that I still recall vividly enough from the hospital that I should write down before I forget them. I did keep a running list that I thought I could cover, but most of the jolliest have already been chronicled here- you know, the funky liquid that they made me take TWICE, for example, and coming very close to actually shouting at the discovery that they'd prepped me for surgery without having my blood type in store. Also, mum's presence, the vigilant voice in the middle of the night, the laughing nurses- I've dealt with those. Other things I have mentioned, but without attaching their entire significance- a girl likes to keep a few nice things to herself- and a few nasty details ought never be disclosed. I haven't yet mentioned the gaggle of students who would follow the doctors in every morning, and the cheeky thumbs-up one threw me as he toddled out the door the day I was discharged. Just hadn't got to it.

I could tell about having the drainage tubes removed, but that does skate pretty close to a line. Suffice to say that the nurse was exactly correct when describing it. It did not 'hurt' to have them whipped out, but it was most definitely 'weird'. I observe again the lack of candy-coating one receives from medical professionals. If it is going to hurt, they tell you so. If it is going to be 'weird', then in an English as a Second Language environment, that is clearly a word that they have learned specifically to describe the procedure; ergo, it is accurate. It might be weird enough to make one yelp out loud from shock, but it is ONLY weird. It is in no way painful.

I guess my last conversation with the surgeon on the morning that I checked out could register as weird, too. He came in, was his usual wrong-footed self at my enthusiastic 'Good morning', and then proceeded to start a final examination of my incision. This involved having me unfasten the (man ALIVE: fabulously comfortable and why don't they make them all like this??) hospital issue bra, and peeling back the layers of bandages and padding that covered the breast. The incision is, as I am sure I have already described, very tidy. He did a very good job. I told him so.

P: That looks like a very good job.
S: (Examining the wound) Thank you.
P: I like it.
S: (Still looking closely) I like it, too.

Now, I have not been able to capture here the subtle shift in his tone. However, have you ever started out in a conversation and suddenly got the feeling that you were caught in an altogether different one? That was the feeling I had- like we were no longer saying quite the same thing. I cannot tell you how high my eyebrows were raised at this, but then the moment was gone. When my mother came in a few seconds later, I was still laughing.

M: What's so funny? Why are you blushing?
P: I have nothing to say.

I choose these tales carefully, you know. I don't mind sharing most of them- I don't have many secrets- or boundaries, it could be argued- but a few get too close to the edge of appropriateness, and this is a public forum. I will not lie, but I also will not tell everything. I shall not reveal everything that the gynecologist told me last week, for example, because YIKES.  Further, there are some events that have been too precious to expose. Those stories would have possibly been entertaining, but... well, the people mattered too much to put them on display. I also try not to reveal any individual's idiocy or to cause embarrassment; I don't name many names, or rattle the bones in anyone else's closet. If you were to peel back the layers of the stories, you would not have to look too hard to identify the other parties, but I hope that I have never been unkind to anyone else here, or to prompt ridicule. And this story? Well, I am pretty confident that my surgeon will never read this. Pretty confident. And it was just a change in tone. That is all.

There will come a day when I look at this chronicle and realise that I sounded ridiculously pompous- or pompously ridiculous. What is really interesting, though, is that even now, it does not seem like the cancer has been the most important thing to happen this year. Don't think that I am being dismissive or anything, please. It has been pretty significant. But I did not know that I was sick. It took the treatment to make me ill. The depression (which apparently, no one knew I had- they just thought I was being a bit sensitive) the sleeplessness, the pain, the hair loss- all those things were brought on by the cure, not the cancer. And as my friend Deb told me in the early days it would be, it was all tolerable. Because what are you going to do, anyway? Hide under the duvet? There are meals to be got and shopping to be done and wine to be poured and laughter to be instigated and mischief to be made. (Don't tell Connie about the wine) Cancer hasn't changed any of that. It just hasn't been the worst thing to happen. Interesting how cancer has paled in comparison to other things. And in some cases, been less painful.

Has it changed anything? I don't entirely know. Those of you who know me- what is different now? I'm think I'm still me- just missing a few parts. I do not appear to be any less of a smart ass, nor less bloody-minded. I still get nervous climbing on an unfamiliar bus and tense in a crowd. I am, perhaps, less tolerant of unsatisfactory situations- life really is too short to be anything less than spectacular. But that is no great revelation, and I certainly don't feel like I've had an epiphany to get there.

I've been taken aback occasionally by connections. Things like discovering that a former colleague was the daughter of the professor at uni who let me in on the teacher training course at the UEA when I had no business being there- you know, apart from the natural flair and grace in the classroom. Or running in to Rich again years after we didn't date in college. Completely mis-read that one, of course, but hear it out: after he left, I spent months trying to figure out what on earth I was doing here. Why Korea? Of all the places in the world to find oneself, how did it end up being Korea??

But here you are- my treatment is, with the exception of a little sweeping up of odd nasties and the radiation/hormone follow-up, done. I went into the hospital at nine o'clock on Tuesday, May 7th, and by the time I left, I'd had blood tests, and ultrasound, two examinations, a mammogram, a biopsy, and a pretty good idea that it was cancer. Two days later it was confirmed, and within a month I'd had MRIs and heart function tests and all sorts of other things involving bells and whistles and smoke and mirrors, as well as starting chemotherapy. I have now had two complete courses of chemo, and two operations with another one waiting in the wings. As Dad pointed out to my mother, six months later somewhere else, I might still be waiting.