十分な時間
医者は私に言った、「計画するのに十分な時間があります」。
でも私はそうは思わない。
どうすれば、いつ、どのくらいの旅費でどこに行けるのか。
時間は迫って来る。 たった2夏と2冬があるだけで。
私はもう還暦を迎えた。
7月にすでに61歳になる。
還暦には新しいサイクルがはじまるの
余分な時間は2年か3年だ。
Enough time
The doctor tells me, “You have enough time.” He refers to making plans for demise: will, body, memorial.
But when he says “enough time,” I think, “There are only two summers, two winters.”
I like to plan the logistics of trips: when, how much, method of travel.
The time approaches. There is enough time, but not enough.
I am already sixty years old, which is one complete cycle in the Eastern cosmology of 12 years x 5 senses. A new cycle begins. Two years more represents extra time.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Time --enough, not enough, extra (English and Japanese)
十分な時間
医者は私に言った、「計画するのに十分な時間があります」。
でも私はそうは思わない。
どうすれば、いつ、どのくらいの旅費でどこに行けるのか。
時間は迫って来る。 たった2夏と2冬があるだけで。
私はもう還暦を迎えた。
7月にすでに61歳になる。
還暦には新しいサイクルがはじまるの
余分な時間は2年か3年だ。
Enough time
The doctor tells me, “You have enough time.” He refers to making plans for demise: will, body, memorial.
But when he says “enough time,” I think, “There are only two summers, two winters.”
I like to plan the logistics of trips: when, how much, method of travel.
The time approaches. There is enough time, but not enough.
I am already sixty years old, which is one complete cycle in the Eastern cosmology of 12 years x 5 senses. A new cycle begins. Two years more represents extra time.
医者は私に言った、「計画するのに十分な時間があります」。
でも私はそうは思わない。
どうすれば、いつ、どのくらいの旅費でどこに行けるのか。
時間は迫って来る。 たった2夏と2冬があるだけで。
私はもう還暦を迎えた。
7月にすでに61歳になる。
還暦には新しいサイクルがはじまるの
余分な時間は2年か3年だ。
Enough time
The doctor tells me, “You have enough time.” He refers to making plans for demise: will, body, memorial.
But when he says “enough time,” I think, “There are only two summers, two winters.”
I like to plan the logistics of trips: when, how much, method of travel.
The time approaches. There is enough time, but not enough.
I am already sixty years old, which is one complete cycle in the Eastern cosmology of 12 years x 5 senses. A new cycle begins. Two years more represents extra time.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Sunrise series 2010
The sunrise this morning, 17 January 2010, and the same mountain ranges during the day (with me and my cat in the foreground).
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Look (content in English)
Close translation from my original Japanese language post
She looked at my coldly. “Katzman will never get well.” Perhaps the hospital worker was thinking this.
In a hospital, 10% of people do not get well. I am among those who 10% who will not recover.
I felt that the expression in her eyes was cold. I felt hurt, and yet the intelligence she reflected was not untrue.
Please do not be cruel. Can the acknowledgement of an unfortunate circumstance be separated from the perception of cruelty?
English language version
I noticed my "change in my status" reflected in the eyes of people in the hospital. Most people are sympathetic and kind. But it seems to me that when some people realize that they are looking at someone who will not recover from the illness, especially a hospital worker whose job involves sick people, a strange look comes into their eyes. Most patients in a hospital recover; 10% do not, according to a source who is a registered nurse.
I have never worked in a hospital. I imagine that part of the job is identification. For example, is this a doctor, or a patient? Frail or strong? What is the illness? Is a wheelchair needed?
And sometimes that status is read with something like cruelty or coldness. It was that calculated coldness that made me feel angry and sad. It was a look that I felt said, "You are doomed, expendable, worthless for the future. Our hospital cannot cure you."
She looked at my coldly. “Katzman will never get well.” Perhaps the hospital worker was thinking this.
In a hospital, 10% of people do not get well. I am among those who 10% who will not recover.
I felt that the expression in her eyes was cold. I felt hurt, and yet the intelligence she reflected was not untrue.
Please do not be cruel. Can the acknowledgement of an unfortunate circumstance be separated from the perception of cruelty?
English language version
I noticed my "change in my status" reflected in the eyes of people in the hospital. Most people are sympathetic and kind. But it seems to me that when some people realize that they are looking at someone who will not recover from the illness, especially a hospital worker whose job involves sick people, a strange look comes into their eyes. Most patients in a hospital recover; 10% do not, according to a source who is a registered nurse.
I have never worked in a hospital. I imagine that part of the job is identification. For example, is this a doctor, or a patient? Frail or strong? What is the illness? Is a wheelchair needed?
And sometimes that status is read with something like cruelty or coldness. It was that calculated coldness that made me feel angry and sad. It was a look that I felt said, "You are doomed, expendable, worthless for the future. Our hospital cannot cure you."
I get to be a Cadaver
15 December 2010
I get to be a Cadaver
Today, I consulted at the hospital with a doctor, nurse, and social worker. They answered many questions. We started with the body.
I want to donate my body as a cadaver. The doctor—who translated during the discussion—said OK.
Medical students will autopsy to learn.
When I got home, I took an afternoon nap. “Will I see the autopsy?” I wondered, but I did not dream during that nap.
I get to be a Cadaver
Today, I consulted at the hospital with a doctor, nurse, and social worker. They answered many questions. We started with the body.
I want to donate my body as a cadaver. The doctor—who translated during the discussion—said OK.
Medical students will autopsy to learn.
When I got home, I took an afternoon nap. “Will I see the autopsy?” I wondered, but I did not dream during that nap.
死体解剖にきょうりょくしたい 。
今日 病院で 私は 医者 に そうだんした。
死体解剖にきょうりょくしたい 。
医学生たちは私の体を解剖することで医学の実習をすることができます。
彼らの役に立てればとてもうれしいです。
帰るとき、昼寝前、 「私は解剖を見ることができますか」と 自問しました。
でもそれにかんする答えとなる夢をみませんでした。
死体解剖にきょうりょくしたい 。
医学生たちは私の体を解剖することで医学の実習をすることができます。
彼らの役に立てればとてもうれしいです。
帰るとき、昼寝前、 「私は解剖を見ることができますか」と 自問しました。
でもそれにかんする答えとなる夢をみませんでした。
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Look (content in Japanese language)
彼女の目つきが陰気になった。「カツマンが全然元気にならない」と思ったらしい。
病人の１０％はよくなりません。 私たちは いつも 病気 です。
あの人は目つきが悪い。
彼女はそんなくだらないことをするほど馬鹿ではない.
邪険にしないで下さいよ！
病人の１０％はよくなりません。 私たちは いつも 病気 です。
あの人は目つきが悪い。
彼女はそんなくだらないことをするほど馬鹿ではない.
邪険にしないで下さいよ！
Sunday, January 3, 2010
the hospital
27 December 2009
The hospital has not been so bad. I leave tomorrow. It has been a pleasant respite, especially as I reread my earlier dire diary entries bewailing “the end of this” and ‘the end of that”. This afternoon, walking along the Kamogawa, a river next to my ward at the Kyoto University Hospital, I felt enchanted in the late warm afternoon at the New Year’s Holiday.
“The sun rises in a different place everyday,” one of my three roommates said as we stood by her southern facing window at a quarter after seven in the morning. We can see the sun rise and set because of the closeness of the time to the solstice. In spring or summer, the sunrise would not be visible from this window. I was delighted to meet a fellow enthusiast of the sunrise, and to understand her Japanese comment by familiarity with its content.
In the care of a terrific two teams of nurses and doctors, decent food, daily walks by the river, I welcome the comraderie and am happy to contribute to daily entertainment with sketches.
A trombone player practices by the gurgling rivers; a wide variety of people cross river in both directions along the stepping stones; my flower vase of crysanthemums and fruit basket of tangerines and bananas are full of color and scent and shape in the necessarily antiseptic room.
I finish reading my alumni magazine, and leave my read paperback Madame Bovary as the first English entry in the small library. A nurse draws a map to an Internet café after the promised Internet connection on Floor Four of the hospital is found to be off limits due to security regulations. I edit a batch of students’ English language essay for a colleague, a paid sideline to my university teaching. I dress every morning and head into the small “office” on Floor Four to read students’ essays, gaining amusement and insight.
When I call to announce my imminent release from the hospital, my landlady immediately tells me my cat is healthy, a relief because I had dreamt of hearing him crying and lost.
Perhaps I was the one who was crying and lost. The week in hospital I think has helped me with more than chemotherapy.
I write new year’s cards and mail them; other patients and nurses do the same.
２００９年１２月２９日
ーーーー
２００９年１２月２９日
昨日 病院から 帰りました。 今からは退院して通院です。
最近、 ずっと昔のこと を 思い出します。思い出は絵のようです。 例えば、 今日 私は 皿を 壊した。 突然、 ３０年前 にもらった皿 を 思い出しだ。
この光景を思い出して、びっくりした。
静かだが、はっきりとした記憶に残っている。 きれいで新鮮です。
２００９年１２月２９日
昨日 病院から 帰りました。 今からは退院して通院です。
最近、 ずっと昔のこと を 思い出します。思い出は絵のようです。 例えば、 今日 私は 皿を 壊した。 突然、 ３０年前 にもらった皿 を 思い出しだ。
この光景を思い出して、びっくりした。
静かだが、はっきりとした記憶に残っている。 きれいで新鮮です。
Cancer Diary: Part 2, English translation from Japanese
2009 December 10
Preparation has been made.
Two weeks from now, my embodiment in an ordinary easy carelessly long life will end. On the shortest day of the year, I will go into the hospital for the first round of chemotherapy: December 21, the winter solstice.
I do not want pain or tears.
2009 December 11
There has been a status change.
Fame, fortune, marriage seem overshadowed by the announcement of the status change of impending death.
Only to my cat do I continue to appear completely healthy, I think; I am glad my cat continues to look at me as ever.
The certain knowledge deepens my eyes with a rare prediction, perceptible to others of my kind even if not expressed or cognitively apprehended. They may be like children who look at adults and think, “They know something they are not telling me.”
I have a special kind of childhood’s end.
Eating a delicious meal, I feel that my mother is near.
When I was a child, I found the discarded filters from my mother’s cigarettes. Because I was a child, I did not care about the tobacco, instead imagining that the paper, unrolled to a miniature scroll, was for writing.
At university, I started 15 years of smoking tobacco.
Preparation has been made.
Two weeks from now, my embodiment in an ordinary easy carelessly long life will end. On the shortest day of the year, I will go into the hospital for the first round of chemotherapy: December 21, the winter solstice.
I do not want pain or tears.
2009 December 11
There has been a status change.
Fame, fortune, marriage seem overshadowed by the announcement of the status change of impending death.
Only to my cat do I continue to appear completely healthy, I think; I am glad my cat continues to look at me as ever.
The certain knowledge deepens my eyes with a rare prediction, perceptible to others of my kind even if not expressed or cognitively apprehended. They may be like children who look at adults and think, “They know something they are not telling me.”
I have a special kind of childhood’s end.
Eating a delicious meal, I feel that my mother is near.
When I was a child, I found the discarded filters from my mother’s cigarettes. Because I was a child, I did not care about the tobacco, instead imagining that the paper, unrolled to a miniature scroll, was for writing.
At university, I started 15 years of smoking tobacco.
Cancer Diary: Part 1, English translation from Japanese
CANCER DIARY
2009 December 3
From now on, it is impossible not to know.
Yesterday, the doctor at the hospital told me, “You have lung cancer. I am sorry.”
I will die in two years.
Little by little, from October, I have come to believe this.
The process began in April with a mole, sometimes called a beauty spot. It can be a little dangerous I hear. So in October, the mole was removed.
What luck. Due to the removal of the mole, there was early cancer detection.
I seemed to be healthy. My mother, uncle, and cousin—three people in my family—suddenly died of lung cancer.
Why did I think the epidemic was over?
2009 December 4
The doctor who removed the mole did a routine blood test. The mole was not malignant. But the blood test showed irregularities and I was referred to a Kyoto University hospital, where lung cancer was found.
My brother asked if I had any premonitions. I remembered that I had felt a pain in my upper chest and a small voice saying words to the effect, “This will be my death.”
Then, there was a dream. On Halloween, I dreamt of a good friend; Paul died eight years ago, sick with emphysema. In the dream, I did not see him, but heard him calling playfully, “Find me.”
2009 December 5
If I had not seen the images, I would not believe the news. Many images were taken, yet they were not photographs. The images were CT scans, MRIs, PET-CT scans, and X-rays.
The Kyoto University Hospital blood tests shows tumor markers. The doctor searches for the tumor.
X-ray and CT scan are done. I wait a week to learn the results. I watch movies and I just about forget to worry by the time of the next doctor’s appointment.
At the hospital, I am sent to a specialist I have not yet met. I look at the sign on the door. “’Pulmonary’. Lungs. Lung cancer,” I think. But it will be weeks before a final diagnosis, weeks before I hear those words from the doctor along with the compassionately scripted touch on the shoulder. The dimpled doctor is a handsome stand-in for the grim reaper.
PET-CT scan. I wait a week. I play piano, take long walks, don't worry.
At the hospital, the doctor tells me the results of the PET-CT with its radioactive markers. The images show yellow where the tumor is in the lung and where it has metastasized in the lymph nodes between the lungs, above the collar bone, and under the arm.
We walk down the hall where the doctor takes a biopsy from the neck.
I wait a week. Before going to the appointment, I walk through a local shrine, conveniently located near the hospital. I know I will hear the diagnosis today.
It is autumn in Kyoto and becoming cold. I have lived in Kyoto since 2008. People say that Kyoto is the heart of Japan: People go to Tokyo to work; they come here, near the heart, to die. It is a good place, a beautiful place.
2009 December 5
Because the result of the blood test showed something wrong, the doctor searched for where the problem was. I had a x-ray and CT scan. One week later, I learned to understand the nature of the illness. At the hospital, I was send to a corner new to me: pulmonary medicine. The pulmonary doctor showed me the results of the x-ray, and said she did not know yet what it was, but suspected cancer.
I was sent to have a PET-CT scan. After the PET-CT scan, I waited a week. I watched movies, played piano, and took walks.
At the hospital, I was shown the results of the PET-CT scan. Bright yellow showed between the lungs, on the throat, and under the left arm. These were the sites that had taken up the radioactive marker indicating rapid sugar uptake, typical of cancer. Only one more test remained: a biopsy of one of those sites. The doctor walked me down the hall and took some cells from the swollen lymph nodes in my neck. He told me to wait for one more week. One more week I had a vision of my life as extending in an indeterminate healthy and long future.
2009 December 6
My brother and sister and sweetheart sob.
It is very sad to hear them. I will soon cry, too.
I have not sobbed yet. Do I want my life to end?
My mother died at aged 61, on her birthday. Next year I will be 61.
2009 December 3
From now on, it is impossible not to know.
Yesterday, the doctor at the hospital told me, “You have lung cancer. I am sorry.”
I will die in two years.
Little by little, from October, I have come to believe this.
The process began in April with a mole, sometimes called a beauty spot. It can be a little dangerous I hear. So in October, the mole was removed.
What luck. Due to the removal of the mole, there was early cancer detection.
I seemed to be healthy. My mother, uncle, and cousin—three people in my family—suddenly died of lung cancer.
Why did I think the epidemic was over?
2009 December 4
The doctor who removed the mole did a routine blood test. The mole was not malignant. But the blood test showed irregularities and I was referred to a Kyoto University hospital, where lung cancer was found.
My brother asked if I had any premonitions. I remembered that I had felt a pain in my upper chest and a small voice saying words to the effect, “This will be my death.”
Then, there was a dream. On Halloween, I dreamt of a good friend; Paul died eight years ago, sick with emphysema. In the dream, I did not see him, but heard him calling playfully, “Find me.”
2009 December 5
If I had not seen the images, I would not believe the news. Many images were taken, yet they were not photographs. The images were CT scans, MRIs, PET-CT scans, and X-rays.
The Kyoto University Hospital blood tests shows tumor markers. The doctor searches for the tumor.
X-ray and CT scan are done. I wait a week to learn the results. I watch movies and I just about forget to worry by the time of the next doctor’s appointment.
At the hospital, I am sent to a specialist I have not yet met. I look at the sign on the door. “’Pulmonary’. Lungs. Lung cancer,” I think. But it will be weeks before a final diagnosis, weeks before I hear those words from the doctor along with the compassionately scripted touch on the shoulder. The dimpled doctor is a handsome stand-in for the grim reaper.
PET-CT scan. I wait a week. I play piano, take long walks, don't worry.
At the hospital, the doctor tells me the results of the PET-CT with its radioactive markers. The images show yellow where the tumor is in the lung and where it has metastasized in the lymph nodes between the lungs, above the collar bone, and under the arm.
We walk down the hall where the doctor takes a biopsy from the neck.
I wait a week. Before going to the appointment, I walk through a local shrine, conveniently located near the hospital. I know I will hear the diagnosis today.
It is autumn in Kyoto and becoming cold. I have lived in Kyoto since 2008. People say that Kyoto is the heart of Japan: People go to Tokyo to work; they come here, near the heart, to die. It is a good place, a beautiful place.
2009 December 5
Because the result of the blood test showed something wrong, the doctor searched for where the problem was. I had a x-ray and CT scan. One week later, I learned to understand the nature of the illness. At the hospital, I was send to a corner new to me: pulmonary medicine. The pulmonary doctor showed me the results of the x-ray, and said she did not know yet what it was, but suspected cancer.
I was sent to have a PET-CT scan. After the PET-CT scan, I waited a week. I watched movies, played piano, and took walks.
At the hospital, I was shown the results of the PET-CT scan. Bright yellow showed between the lungs, on the throat, and under the left arm. These were the sites that had taken up the radioactive marker indicating rapid sugar uptake, typical of cancer. Only one more test remained: a biopsy of one of those sites. The doctor walked me down the hall and took some cells from the swollen lymph nodes in my neck. He told me to wait for one more week. One more week I had a vision of my life as extending in an indeterminate healthy and long future.
2009 December 6
My brother and sister and sweetheart sob.
It is very sad to hear them. I will soon cry, too.
I have not sobbed yet. Do I want my life to end?
My mother died at aged 61, on her birthday. Next year I will be 61.
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