<p>Prayers and positive energy sent out tonight for any and all who are fighting those shadows.</p>
<p>Had a colonoscopy today. Perfect reading. The doctor told me to come back in 7 years. SEVEN YEARS!!! Thats several times of my life expectancy according to the official stats. </p>
<p>I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to my next colonoscopy. We will have a big celebration the night before my next colonoscopy! Lots to look forward to! </p>
<p>See, its amazing what becomes your long anticipated mile post when you change your perspective :)</p>
<p>What a wonderful positive sign, sunriseeast! I hope that we are all here on this thread to celebrate with you seven years from now - 2018!!!</p>
<p>Well, if the night before your next colonoscopy is anything like the nights before my colonoscopies, that should be one heck of a party. lol! </p>
<p>Congratualtions, Sunrise. You are one tough cookie.</p>
<p>That’s great news! Hurray for colonoscopies! :)</p>
<p>Lazy and relaxed weekend… Hot, but tolerable.</p>
<p>Now that I am seriously considering the idea of publication (I am contacting a couple of agents to test the water), I was going through some early writings. This one was the first entry - at the beginning of the journey, the day I broke the news to my husband.</p>
<p>Boy, I have come a long way! </p>
<p>Here it is. (Now that I am thinking about a book, I am letting a bit more personal information come through).</p>
<hr>
<p>A beginning of a journey, a promise to keep</p>
<p>I picked up my husband in the train station this evening. Told him about the CT scan that showed extensive metastasis all over the abdominal/pelvic area, including the liver. The biopsy results yesterday confirmed it is cancer. The results of the scan puts it at Stage 4 (and there is no stage 5). I dont need a doctor to tell me that I have already done enough research during last couple of days to correctly guess what it is I am dealing with.<br>
I thought I processed most raw emotions during the day. I rehearsed over and over again in my head how I would calmly describe what I learned, and reassure him that in spite of the scary labels and statistics, I would emerge a winner whatever that means. I thought I would be more composed by the time I picked him up. I was wrong.</p>
<p>I cried all the way home. We parked the car on the street for a while - I needed to compose myself in case Jon sees me in the family room when I walk in through the garage. I am keeping this quiet from the kids yet. Daniel is coming home from college on Saturday, and I plan to have a nice family dinner out first and discuss this in the evening together as a family.</p>
<p>I don’t know when was the last time I cried so hard. It was not one of those dainty, romantic, and elegant sobs of a movie heroine. It was a loud and painful cry. Almost primeval. It was not a cry about my potential demise or a fear of the disease. It was not even about me. I am not afraid of death for myself, not because I have nothing to live for, but because I believe death is easy on the dying. The pain is for those left behind. My crying was mostly about my husband. One promise I made him when we got married was that I would be by his side holding his hand when his time comest. The thought of not fulfilling that promise is unbearable. </p>
<p>I remember vividly the summer we met over 25 years ago. He had just gotten his Ph.D., and was ready to go back to his home country, Israel, by the end of the summer. He already had a job lined up there, and a moving contract for his possessions. I completed my 3rd year at the Ph.D. program. It was supposed to be a summer fling, nothing more serious, just to fill the lazy summer days on empty campus before he would go back home for good, and I to Korea for a short visit. Even so, right from the beginning, I had an almost instinctual understanding that between the two of us, I should be the one to send him off, that I was constitutionally, emotionally, better equipped to be left behind. So, I suggested that he leave first with me accompanying him to the airport so that he has somebody by his side when he departs, and I would leave a few days later. He did leave with me saying bon voyage. But he came back. Six month later, we got married in a court house in Champaign, Illinois, while his friends back in Israel had a betting pool for how long this marriage would last where nobody betted more than two years, and my family back in Korea thought the shining family flagship was no more, as a nice girl from a respectable family in Korea did not marry a foreigner. </p>
<p>Weve built together a nice life with two terrific kids. Nevertheless, I have always been acutely aware that he gave up a lot to be with me. Unlike me who couldnt wait to escape from the country I was born and raised in, he never intended to become a wondering Jew. It was only last few years that I no longer felt responsible for the fact that he was living far away from the people and the way of life he loved. Not that this resulted in any sense of indebtedness that propelled me to overcompensate by being ever more accommodating and obliging. If his friends had known that on top of everything else, I had lacked the decency to live up to the reputation of Asian women of my generation for being a meek and obliging wife, they wouldnt have betted even two years. I have never been an easy spouse to live with. If anybody were to ask about the secret of our long marriage, I would freely admit that its mostly my husbands accommodating nature. He has always been the text book example of what a supportive spouse should be. Meanwhile, I am a wife from Mars. This sums it up for our relationship: a husband from Venus and a wife from Mars. </p>
<p>If I were to build a case for myself as a spouse, I would say, I am a person of some integrity. That I am a loyal, dependable person, and I keep my words. I would like to deliver on the only promise I made that is, I would outlive him, that he wont have to be the one left behind. I have always been so indestructibly healthy, and I was so sure that I would live to be 100 and beyond, it never occurred to me that I may default on this promise. The grim statistics I read that gave me less than 10% chance of five year survival pained me more for the injustice of it all for my husband who may be cheated out of one promise that was given to him in return for the heavy price he paid for our life together than anything else it may mean for my own prospect going forward. </p>
<p>He, as usual, was unbelievably gentle and supportive as I was sobbing uncontrollably. He held me and comforted me.</p>
<p>After a while we walked through the door. Jon was watching TV, blissfully ignorant about all this. In five days, there will be an entirely different reality for him, when he learns about what is going on. The veneer of normalcy is disorienting, and precarious.</p>
<p>sunriseeast~your writing is evocative…and I must say, the way you describe your marriage is moving. I can feel your soulful connection and devotion to each other. It is quite beautiful. good luck with your book!</p>
<p>I agree–most moving! You and your husband sound like soulmates, tho different in many ways. It’s funny, I too thought I’d end up caring for my hubby as I am significantly younger than him & my family is VERY long-lived (great-uncle just died at around 107).</p>
<p>When I was diagnosed with a severe chronic progressive condition, the specter not being there for him (& the kids) was one of my greatest fears and concerns. Fortunately, I’m defying the odds & docs, still doing much better than expected 11 years later. Hope the same holds for you & your beloved, Sunrise!</p>
<p>So touching.</p>
<p>Sunriseeast- Thank you for sharing this. Very moving.</p>
<p>Sunrise, your writing is beautiful. Thank you for this window into your life and your marriage.</p>
<p>I sent my book proposal today to a literary agent. An acquaintance of mine is a published writer, and she is introducing my proposal to him. We will see what happens. </p>
<p>Regardless of the outcome, I have already gotten so much out of my essays, anything more is an icing on the cake.</p>
<p>You all contributed tremendously to this new quixotic venture of mine. Your encouragement is what made me try this path. I owe all of you you a big thank you note!!!</p>
<p>sunrise, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. IMO, anyone who rejects your book proposal will be a fool.</p>
<p>I would buy your book, but I would have to read it in secret … because I would cry the whole time. You do write beautifully, and I can’t help but remember others I know who have dealt with the feelings you write about.</p>
<p>sunrise - Good luck with your book proposal! That’s really exciting. I am very happy to read this news.</p>
<p>I always look for your posts.</p>
<p>Here is another one I dug out from the archive, now that I am thinking about putting together a collection for the book project.</p>
<p>Boy, already, this feels like it happened 1000 years ago!</p>
<hr>
<p>A Dance of Seven Scarves</p>
<p>Its been four weeks since my chemo treatment started. A weekly chemo schedule is rather intense. I am very fortunate that I have not developed any side effects so far. In fact, I havent felt this good in months! Back to my full aerobic schedule. No nausea. However, one side effect I could not escape from is hair falling out. Yes, it was anticipated. Yes, its only vanity. Yet, seeing clumps of hair falling out during a shower has a visceral impact on ones psyche. So, like most women going through a chemo treatment, I decided to shave my head. Yesterday was the “shearing day” a time to be a sheep. My husband was ready to do this for days now, and, I suspect, was looking forward to it. I guess it’s his idea of adding some sparks of variety and excitement to a marriage to the same woman for 25 years. He has way too much predatory interest in this, and I get suspicious. But, between this and philandering with a blue eyed, blonde 21 year old secretary, my lot in life isn’t too bad. </p>
<p>He had all the equipment since Jon likes his hair really short and has relied on his father to do the deed when he wanted to keep it within an inch during the summer. So, I meekly submitted myself to his unsteady, amateurish barber hands. I couldn’t bear to watch it done, so I stipulated no mirror in front of me. I was sobbing as I heard the snip snip sound of what little hair that was gallantly hanging onto my increasingly inhospitable scalp being razored away. He kept saying, how beautiful and sexy I was and gently caressed my rapidly balding head in between sweeping motions of running the razor like a bulldozer. This would have been such a touching, hallmark moment. </p>
<p>Except… I blurted out. “There is a pervert for every deformity!”<br>
That just ruined the magic moment… This mouth of mine, I can’t help it. </p>
<p>Speaking of a perversity, I must confess this was not the first time I suspected him of something like this. I remember when we just started to get to know each other some 26 years ago that lazy summer on empty campus. One day, we were supposed to see a movie together. He called earlier and said he was playing softball and since my apartment was just around the corner, could he come and take a shower before we go out. I said yes. He came over and went straight to the bathroom. This was the first time he was in my apartment.</p>
<p>He was in the bathroom close to two hours. I heard the sound of water running for a few minutes. Then silence for a few minutes. Then again the sound of water running … This went on interminably. I was pacing back and force in the living room, convinced that this man had a problem. God knows what’s going on in there!!! I wondered “What amazing luck of mine! I thought I found a pretty decent guy, and he turned out to be pervert!!!”</p>
<p>Finally he came out. He said, well, your bathtub tiles were all covered with dirt and slime, and I cleaned it all out for you. I murmured something to the effect that I am near sighted and when I take a shower, I take my glasses off, so I did not notice… He then went on to my kitchen. He must have noticed that all the light bulbs were on strike and made a mental note of it, because next time he came to my apartment, somehow all the light bulbs were miraculously back at work. </p>
<p>People stay together for different reasons. When somebody asks me what the secret for our long, and apparently, well functioning marriage is, I say “we have matching pathologies”.
After the deed was done, I stood in front of a mirror and surveyed the wreckage. I have never felt so naked in my life. Like a larvae prematurely taken out of a cocoon, I felt exposed and defenseless. But its not just hair. My whole body tells a story of a woman who is no longer intact. There is a chemo port a quarter sized cap inserted near the collar bone for easy administration of chemo drugs. Since I am thin and bony, it sticks out a mile high. Then there is a 14 inch vertical abdominal scar. How appropriate it is that it has a shape of a question mark (with a line bending around the navel)! To be or not to be is that what its trying to ask me? Given a very poor prognosis associated with my diagnosis, its a fair question to ask. </p>
<p>With a bald head, a protruding port, and a prominent scar, I am Exhibit A of modern gynecological cancer treatment options. Not exactly an arousing sight. Though my body is in an excellent shape and form due to a life long healthy life style and good genes, my days as a femme fatale with a sultry come hither look are definitely over. Certainly, a strip tease is out of question, even if I were ever to be so inclined. But, my husbands perverse fascination with my bald head is giving me an interesting idea. Instead of Salomes dance of seven veils an ancient form of a strip tease, perhaps, I should develop a routine called a dance of seven scarves. I can just picture his knees going weak as one scarf after another is slowly cast away with an artful, sensuous gesture. Its good to know when most of what makes me a woman was taken out, there is still something that I can use for feminine guile and charm that will work for at least one perverted customer!</p>
<p>Fast forward five month later. Two months past the last chemo infusion, my hair is hesitantly coming back. My head is no longer completely bald as it is covered with soft fuzz. During the whole time I was bald, my husband had to beg and plead to have me take the cap off at home, and I would never do it in the public space in the house like a living room or a kitchen only in the bedroom. These days, I am magnanimously generous with him. I spend a good amount of time with my cap off in his presence. He has so little time left to indulge his perversion, I take pity on him. He holds my head in his hands with anticipated nostalgia as if he were caressing a melting ice sculpture of Venus.</p>
<p>sunrise, hurry up and get this book done. I can’t wait to get my copy. :)</p>
<p>^^Me too. See, you already sold a couple of copies! :)</p>
<p>You have a great voice in your writing.
Thanks for sharing.</p>