Toast to Life 7

On Sunday, October 4th, I had two calls from my Japanese friends. They were both surprised that I started blogging (this article), but they strongly recommended me to do so. I have had a senior who helped me while studying in the United States had recommended me to keep a diary, and the email I received in the past said so. I'm glad I started it at last in a way of blog. There will be nothing good to hide, and no fear upon disclosing things.

This issue talks about my feeling during hospitalization at Narita.

Looking back at the diary I kept in Narita, I now realize that I was not able to accept my conditions at least in around the beginning of August. By the way, the treatment and chemotherapy (Temodar), irradiating my head and taking medication, started on July 30, and another chemotherapy, a kind of anticancer drug, molecular-targeting drug (Avastin) infused every two weeks from August 12.  All the three ended at the time of discharge, at least temporarily. 

The following are quotes from the diary.

"I see a cancer story in SmartNews always, every day. I get sick. Symptoms, treatments, and survival rates should vary from person to person, but those articles are things all rounded up. Or probably, the number of patients are increasing enough to get realized by everyone?” (Sunday, August 9)

"What consists of a family? Even when a body scab is peeled off, it is cured in a few days, like as a family filling the vacancy gap of myself with the remaining three. Yesterday S family (family friends in both since Meguro days), and today Yuka (aka) another Japanese we met in Singapore. They (note, the three members of our family) seem to be busy, and I envy them from the bottom of my heart. No. I haven't accepted my death in the near future at all. How many years will I be able to last? Until next year? Three years? Ten years? Family left should be too painful" (Monday, August 10)

"Today I didn't like my voice/throat being sour. I get very sensitive to my minor physical symptoms." (Friday, August 14. Note, the diary mentioned my throat being sour on the 10th, too, four days before. I make all of my symptoms to my cancers associated with such as "a slight headache", "a feeling of discomfort in the bronchi, and a burn-like pain a particular part inside my mouth)." (Note, by the way, I started getting out, but I still have a feeling of discomfort in my throat).

My anxiety at the time was related to my understanding of unusually slowness in patients treatment, in general, by the Japanese medical community. This may not be something improved by the efforts of a single doctor, and should be related to the slowness of the entire system of "Japan", not limited to the medical world. The egregious societal side-effects of trying to manage everything on a schedule, the hopeless delay in digitization, and the culture of "sontaku" (peer pressure). Whether the top of the country is Mr. Abe or Mr. Suga, it has the same pathology spreading over the nation's entire system. In Singapore, if a doctor judges "this is bad" at the moment of a patient examination, s/he will do the operation at least the next day, hopefully on the day, if there were a system and condition applied to a medical business to allow doctors to operate. My impression is that the Japanese system is too wasteful and too ineffective.

A person I talked with last night, friend of Koko as well as mine, also made me keenly aware that, if there is a glass ceiling, I should breaking it. I used to think that "oh, yeah" as the ceiling was/is normally made by male. I did not notice it, and am grateful and thankful to her.

In relation with the slowness in Japanese society, the same August 10 diary has another description as follows. "The elderly person came a week ago to my opposite side in the shared room. It seems that his brain tumors are affecting his left half of the body. According to him, he is getting rather worse in the last seven days, feeling depressed. The operation will be performed around August 20th, no less than ten days from today (according to a rehabilitation therapist). Can people who can be saved in this Japan be saved? Even in my own experience here in the hospital, I am often said from a medical staff, "maybe next week" or "in ten days" along with so many excuses spelled out of their mouths.

Take an example of Singapore insurance. The insurance premium paid in was about SGD 10,000 a year (a little less than 800,000 yen at today's currency exchange, a little less than 70,000 yen a month). Thanks to cheap personal and corporate income tax and high-interest savings package offered by the financial industry, it is more profitable than off-setting, paying taxes dues in Japan. Moreover, the quick medical services available in Singapore shows far efficiency than in Japan. 

(The photo is from a trip to Borneo on November 28, 2019 with the U.S.-Canada family who recommended me to write this blog series. Since my family has four children, a total of six kids including ours, the back view to me was "Spectacular". I remember thinking that way. To be continued.)