Fried chicken.

Seoul is filled with fried chicken spots.  Eat in or take out.  Have it delivered with a brief phone call, sms or via phone apps.  On just the street closest to us, a mental tally gives a count of five fried chicken places.  I wonder how many there are on the other 3 streets bordering the apartment block.  The cafes and hagwons still outnumber them though.

Why the mention of “unhealthy” friend chicken?  Well, Annie asked for it on Sunday night!

Some context.  When someone undergoes radiation like she has, there is typically a loss of appetite.  Not unlike chemo; where taste perception changes with chemo, affecting appetite.  So fried chicken signaled a turn in appetite, a turn to indicate that swallowing felt better.  Recovery from the side effects of radiation.  In better preparation of next steps.  A good thing.

So we tried a new fried chicken place.  The first was when her friend L visited from Taiwan two weeks ago.  Two out of five now.  We may just try every single one of them someday. She devoured the crispy goodness.

She also craved char siu bao (steamed pork buns).  We seeked out Crystal Jade, a Chinese restaurant, at lunch yesterday.  But alas, they were sold out!  XLB was the consolation.

Rewinding back to the start the week.

It started out without trips to the hospital.  That was nice.  Her body, tired from the prior weeks’ radiation, needed rest.  So it was primarily a time of rest.  Though the process lying down and turning in bed didn’t look very pleasurable.  Laughter evokes joyful and funny facial contortions, because there’s joy, but it hurts the ribs and spine to laugh too hard.

We visited neurology/orthopedics on Wednesday.  She got custom fitted with a brace to help reduce the chance of fractures.  After two months, she’ll stop wearing it.  Hopefully, there’ll be PT exercises after to re-strengthed the muscles/tendons weakened from this process?  It didn’t look too white-storm-trooperish like the ones we saw at the first hospital though.  It’s gray, and has soft padded sleeves in which the custom white molds are inserted into.  We wondered if we can stick big velcro patches, not unlike the “fbi”/”swat”/”ncis”/etc you see stuck on vests in the movies.  Except, hers might have to say something a little different.

Standing is preferable to sitting, so we jury rigged a “standing desk” for her; with boxes atop a table, and a foam camping pad to stand on.   Here’s a photo of her just before we had a skype session with friends K&G in San Francisco.  The mouse box has been elevated since for better ergonomics.

A buddy of mine, KP, flew in on Wednesday night, stopping over for a night to say hello.   After cooking dinner for Annie, and her having an early rest; I headed out to catch up with KP, whose hotel was close by.  The next day, Annie felt good enough to walk around a bit which was really nice to see.  So the three of us walked around the neighborhood and had brunch together.  The weather is still warm out, hovering around 33-37C and humid.

As KP departed, Annie and I watched with amusement.  The taxi he got into simple stayed by the roadside for a long while. The taxi driver noticeably unsure where to head to.   Haha, any non Korean-speaking friends and family who visit will get to experience this communication adventure.  We still do.

Saturday was a quick clear reminder for me to stay healthy myself, so I can always be there as a reliable companion, husband, clown, advocate and care giver.  Ignoring good rest, my afib kicked in, I felt ill and could not, for an afternoon, do the tasks I had wanted to do effectively.  A decent afternoon and evening of rest took care of that.

If fancy camping is “glamping”, what do we call fancy dumpster diving?  “glamster diving”?  “dumpster gliving”?  There is a predictability in the estate where we rent our apartment.  On weekends, furniture, usually decent stuff, is put out by the trash sites (each building has it’s own nice trash sorting location). We’ve been told (after our choosing to live here) that only rich young parents compete to stay in our neighborhood (Daechi-dong) so their kids can go to the hagwons till 10pm at night.  Someone from our building put out bookshelves on Sunday.  I suspect because of the crayon marks atop.  We looked at each other, and laughed.  And after some cleaning and sanitizing, we have a bookshelf.  A beautiful cedar desk also drew our eyes, but we were getting picky, the drawers had been painted over in a luminous baby blue hue.

Started re-reading some books.  During our long boat trip down the Mekong with family, Christmas eve of 2014, I had happened to read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande.  And in April this year, when we made a trip to Smith Rocks, I had read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi;  the reading has been interspersed with lighter fare of the Mistborn series.  Both books were good reads.  And now appropriate for perspective I suppose.  An email from a friend mentioning Gawande prompted me to read those two books again.

The remainder of the weekend, we hung out at the little community cafe/reading area in the complex.  We both continued our reads of When Breath Becomes Air on our kindles while snacking away at a sleeve of Toblerone.  We’ve got lots of Toblerone.  K&G mailed us a box of 20 sleeves!  And the neighborhood children were there doing their homework of course.  A few days ago, an approximately 4 year old next to me was working a sheet filled with lines of multiplication; all mentally, no “working out the problem”.  I was relived to have answered “7 x 450” a mere 3 seconds before he wrote the answer.  Annie asked if I was worried he’d be faster.  Erm, yes.

Today, Monday, she stopped by at work for a few short hours.  We went to the building together, me carrying her things and then remaining close by.  As crazy as it sounds, the cognitive/social stimulation seemed a good thing.  One of the first things she said was, “It feels really good.”  Perhaps it was her chance not to be stuck with me 24/7 :)?

Today is also the day she’s walked the most in the past two weeks, ate a huge lunch, and lay down onto bed with less of a grimace.  Which means the palliative effect of radiation is working. But the radiation oncologist also gently reminded on Friday that it was palliative. I’ll have to learn and understand more.  But contrary to my previous post, the specter of MSCC stays around, and we’ll see how systemic therapies deal with it.  Nuances, so many nuances.

We got a confirmation call that biopsy will proceed on Thursday.  They’ll first try the iliac crest of the ilium first (hip), with the lower t-spine being the alternative.  Maybe she will get to choose.  Miss, post biopsy, would you prefer to experience butt-ache or back-ache?  Hopefully, a smooth biopsy regardless of location, so it’ll be outpatient as planed.

There will be close support should we need it this weekend.  A good friend S is flying into Seoul for a Friday work interview, and will stay in the area through the weekend.  My sis and bro-in-law are swinging by as well.  All foodies; so I’m extra hopeful for outpatient-low-pain biopsy, which will allow us to fill her with good deliciousness.

At the start of September, we meet with the oncologist to review biopsy results and likely begin systemic treatment.  Radiation for T1 begins at the same time.  Plans are still evolving for decisions after that.

What patients seek is not scientific knowledge that doctors hide but existential authenticity each person must find on her own. Getting too deeply into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water. The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.
~ Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

Back to the present point on the path.  Fried chicken, anyone?