{"id":234,"date":"2016-08-22T19:11:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T03:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/?p=234"},"modified":"2025-02-22T18:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T02:44:12","slug":"fried-chicken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/fried-chicken\/","title":{"rendered":"Fried chicken"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fried chicken.<\/p>\n

Seoul is filled with fried chicken spots.\u00a0 Eat in or take out.\u00a0 Have it delivered with a brief phone call, sms or via phone apps.\u00a0 On just the street closest to us, a mental tally gives a count of five fried chicken places.\u00a0 I wonder how many there are on the other 3 streets bordering the apartment block.\u00a0 The cafes and hagwons still outnumber them though.<\/p>\n

Why the mention of “unhealthy” friend chicken?\u00a0 Well, Annie asked for it on Sunday night!<\/p>\n

Some context.\u00a0 When someone undergoes radiation like she has, there is typically a loss of appetite.\u00a0 Not unlike chemo; where taste perception changes with chemo, affecting appetite.\u00a0 So fried chicken signaled a turn in appetite, a turn to indicate that swallowing felt better.\u00a0 Recovery from the side effects of radiation.\u00a0 In better preparation of next steps.\u00a0 A good thing.<\/p>\n

So we tried a new fried chicken place.\u00a0 The first was when her friend L visited from Taiwan two weeks ago.\u00a0 Two out of five now.\u00a0 We may just try every single one of them someday. She devoured the crispy goodness.<\/p>\n

She also craved char siu bao (steamed pork buns).\u00a0 We seeked out Crystal Jade, a Chinese restaurant, at lunch yesterday.\u00a0 But alas, they were sold out!\u00a0 XLB was the consolation.<\/p>\n

Rewinding back to the start the week.<\/p>\n

It started out without trips to the hospital.\u00a0 That was nice.\u00a0 Her body, tired from the prior weeks’ radiation, needed rest.\u00a0 So it was primarily a time of rest.\u00a0 Though the process lying down and turning in bed didn’t look very pleasurable.\u00a0 Laughter evokes joyful and funny facial contortions, because there’s joy, but it hurts the ribs and spine to laugh too hard.<\/p>\n

We visited neurology\/orthopedics on Wednesday.\u00a0 She got custom fitted with a brace to help reduce the chance of fractures.\u00a0 After two months, she’ll stop wearing it.\u00a0 Hopefully, there’ll be PT exercises after to re-strengthed the muscles\/tendons weakened from this process?\u00a0 It didn’t look too white-storm-trooperish like the ones we saw at the first hospital though.\u00a0 It’s gray, and has soft padded sleeves in which the custom white molds are inserted into.\u00a0 We wondered if we can stick big velcro patches, not unlike the “fbi”\/”swat”\/”ncis”\/etc you see stuck on vests in the movies.\u00a0 Except, hers might have to say something a little different.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0 Here’s a photo of her just before we had a skype session with friends K&G in San Francisco.\u00a0 The mouse box has been elevated since for better ergonomics.<\/p>\n

\"makeshiftstandup\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A buddy of mine, KP, flew in on Wednesday night, stopping over for a night to say hello.\u00a0\u00a0 After cooking dinner for Annie, and her having an early rest; I headed out to catch up with KP, whose hotel was close by.\u00a0 The next day, Annie felt good enough to walk around a bit which was really nice to see.\u00a0 So the three of us walked around the neighborhood and had brunch together.\u00a0 The weather is still warm out, hovering around 33-37C and humid.<\/p>\n

As KP departed, Annie and I watched with amusement.\u00a0 The taxi he got into simple stayed by the roadside for a long while. The taxi driver noticeably unsure where to head to. \u00a0 Haha, any non Korean-speaking friends and family who visit will get to experience this communication adventure.\u00a0 We still do.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 A decent afternoon and evening of rest took care of that.<\/p>\n

If fancy camping is “glamping”, what do we call fancy dumpster diving?\u00a0 “glamster diving”?\u00a0 “dumpster gliving”?\u00a0 There is a predictability in the estate where we rent our apartment.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Someone from our building put out bookshelves on Sunday.\u00a0 I suspect because of the crayon marks atop.\u00a0 We looked at each other, and laughed.\u00a0 And after some cleaning and sanitizing, we have a bookshelf.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Started re-reading some books.\u00a0 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<\/em>.\u00a0 And in April this year, when we made a trip to Smith Rocks, I had read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi<\/em>;\u00a0 the reading has been interspersed with lighter fare of the Mistborn series.\u00a0 Both books were good reads.\u00a0 And now appropriate for perspective I suppose.\u00a0 An email from a friend mentioning Gawande prompted me to read those two books again.<\/p>\n

The remainder of the weekend, we hung out at the little community cafe\/reading area in the complex.\u00a0 We both continued our reads of When Breath Becomes Air<\/em> on our kindles while snacking away at a sleeve of Toblerone.\u00a0 We’ve got lots of Toblerone.\u00a0 K&G mailed us a box of 20 sleeves!\u00a0 And the neighborhood children were there doing their homework of course.\u00a0 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”.\u00a0 I was relived to have answered “7 x 450” a mere 3 seconds before he wrote the answer.\u00a0 Annie asked if I was worried he’d be faster.\u00a0 Erm, yes.<\/p>\n

Today, Monday, she stopped by at work for a few short hours.\u00a0 We went to the building together, me carrying her things and then remaining close by.\u00a0 As crazy as it sounds, the cognitive\/social stimulation seemed a good thing.\u00a0 One of the first things she said was, “It feels really good.”\u00a0 Perhaps it was her chance not to be stuck with me 24\/7 :)?<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But contrary to my previous post, the specter of MSCC stays around, and we’ll see how systemic therapies deal with it.\u00a0 Nuances, so many nuances.<\/p>\n

We got a confirmation call that biopsy will proceed on Thursday.\u00a0 They’ll first try the iliac crest of the ilium first (hip), with the lower t-spine being the alternative.\u00a0 Maybe she will get to choose.\u00a0 Miss, post biopsy, would you prefer to experience butt-ache or back-ache?<\/em>\u00a0 Hopefully, a smooth biopsy regardless of location, so it’ll be outpatient as planed.<\/p>\n

There will be close support should we need it this weekend.\u00a0 A good friend S is flying into Seoul for a Friday work interview, and will stay in the area through the weekend.\u00a0 My sis and bro-in-law are swinging by as well.\u00a0 All foodies; so I’m extra hopeful for outpatient-low-pain biopsy, which will allow us to fill her with good deliciousness.<\/p>\n

At the start of September, we meet with the oncologist to review biopsy results and likely begin systemic treatment.\u00a0 Radiation for T1 begins at the same time.\u00a0 Plans are still evolving for decisions after that.<\/p>\n

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.<\/em>
\n~ Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to the present point on the path.\u00a0 Fried chicken, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fried chicken. Seoul is filled with fried chicken spots.\u00a0 Eat in or take out.\u00a0 Have it delivered with a brief phone call, sms or via phone apps.\u00a0 On just the street closest to us, a mental tally gives a count of five fried chicken places.\u00a0 I wonder how many there are on the other 3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siangandannie.com\/peregrinate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}