The Taiwan Adventist Hospital

Tricia has written about the operation, and the circumstances behind it.

Suffice it for me to say that I have indeed been VERY lucky (as in fact Tricia was 2 years ago when they found her lung cancer). The Oncologist confirmed that they consider the removal 100% successful, with no need for ongoing treatment (no radio, no chemo, nothing). This was found so early that the operation was sufficient.

My 2 weeks in hospital eventually passed quickly, but was mostly REALLY boring while I was in there – there is so much garbage on cable TV – and repeated soooo often; yuk. All the things I meant to do: painting, writing letters, planning my retirement, never got done in the end though. Heaven knows where / how the time went.

One thing for sure though, all of the visitors, the emails, the cards, and the gifts of flowers, fruit and other things made the experience much more endurable.

Here’s a pic of the flowers (most of them – some had already gone home).

That and the nursing staff and my surgeon / doctor. They were great. Even if most of the nurses did not speak great English, they were all fabulous; and here’s a picture of the nursing staff (with the new, slimmer, me in the background).

The only downer was the food. It was AWFUL. Liquid diet for 11 days is no joke, not least when the liquids look only vaguely as if they have seen anything of substance (a carrot waved over the top of boiling water, perchance). As for rice congee, or rather the water that they thought about boiling the rice in, well the only salvation there was pouring fruit juice in it to flavour it! Enough of that though, as I did lose almost 14 lbs while in there (let’s see how long before that creeps back?).

So now it’s back to the routine, somewhat, at home. The first week I have been taking it easy with just a little work (to relieve the boredom, as I cannot do anything even remotely physically challenging yet). The best part about coming home was in fact the food – finally being able to eat something with flavour – even if all vegetarian and “soft foods” for a while.

Now let’s see what next week brings – other than MEAT (yeah!).