Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part IV

Bitterness

Possessing fair and white skin, Chong-Lan was always adored for her very fine skin quality. Dur to her illness, however, she could no longer protect it from getting more wounds.

The next day after the test report came out, Chong-Lan was hospitalized at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chia-Yi. She underwent a series of examinations, including CT scan, colonoscopy, biopsy. On the fourth day, she entered the surgery room and received the first cut. Her rectum was successfully removed. “Since it was found that there was also some shadow over the liver, they checked my liver as well. So, it was a big surgery that time.” Chong-Lan measured with her hands a 30-centimeter cut.

However, the surgery on the following day – installation of an artificial anus – made Chong-Lan feel as if she was “not a human being, not like a human being!” and she suffered enormously from it. Chong-Lan said that because the previous surgery was operated way too close to her anus, it was decided as an urgency on the fifth day that she needed to install an artificial anus. Consequently, everyday she had to have her feces cleaned up from the right side of her body and the bag changed each time.

“Sometimes when it was not attached well enough, the bag could fail to carry the weight and simply 'explode'. Once I had the bag changed three times a day. My skin got hurt just from the bag being torn away.” Chong-Lan recalled at that time, while her little auntie (wife of her mother's youngest brother) attached the bag to her body, she would be crying and feeling lots and lots of pain. Moreover, the feces smelled really really bad!

In the three months following the surgery, Chong-Lan had to stay in bed. Not until she could get up and clean the artificial anus by herself did Chong-Lan realize how much her little auntie had to endure and how much she loved her. Very disgusting, very stinky! Chong-Lan said, “Because my small intestine was pulled out and connected to the bag for defecation, my feces were quite fluid. Sometimes when I had diarrhea, they were nearly watery. And so, the bag had got to be cleaned up very often.”

Battling with the artificial anus for ten months, she suffered from the filthy feeling that originated from her own body. Nevertheless, chemotherapy was far more ruinous to her, on both body and mind.

“It hurt so much. I cried through it every time!” After finishing the first chemotherapy and returning home, Chong-Lan held her mother tight, crying hard and loud, and she did not remember how long it took her to calm down. “It was very, very painful! Please don’t let me go for the second treatment!” Chong-Lan begged her family. Chong-Lan remembered that each treatment took 72 hours, so she had to be hospitalized for three days. And, two weeks after returning home, she had to go back to the hospital for the second treatment.

“Really wanted to hide myself! So, my family wouldn’t be able to find me and send me to any chemos. But, I didn’t know where to hide either.” However, Chong-Lan thought to herself that since she had already undergone the surgery, wasn’t it not worth anymore to give up? The second time when she checked in at the hospital, Chong-Lan could not help but cried with the first injection. She cried three times, and at the fourth time, Chong-Lan started to bargain with the doctor while getting her injections. “Six times are enough!” Chong-Lan said it with a grin, and then she still forced herself to bear until the 12^th injection. The doctor told her that there should be no problem after he reconnected her intestine.

Finally, she was a “normal human being” again! In addition to her family, the hope did not seem as remote any more that she could have another family with her boyfriend whom she met a year ago.

“I tried to have some relationships before, but I could never talk freely with them and the ways we looked at things were also quite different.” Chong-Lan met her first real boyfriend when she was 35. She felt secure with him and began to consider getting married and having her own family. “Since I got sick then went through the surgery and chemotherapy, in that period when everything became under control, we both felt hopeful again. We were so happy.” Chong-Lan said that it was an unforgettable period, and just by thinking of it, she would start to smile. It was such a sweet and wonderful period.

“No! How can it be? Finally when I’ll be spending the rest of my life with him. How can it be!” It was only 120 days that her cancer was under control. Then, it transferred to her lymph system. “Am I gonna live like this, with endless treatments?” Chong-Lan had read many books and had tried to learn from others’ stories of how they fought against cancer. She had also followed the suggestions listed in the books about how to live her life. However, these efforts did not bring about much effect. When faced with the recommencement of her chemotherapy, Chong-Lan began to hesitate and resist.

“Probably because I didn’t make enough efforts!” So did Chong-Lan concluded from her cancer resurfacing, without much emotion.

Portrait of a Hearful Economist?

"I did not come to solve anything.
I came here to sing
and for you to sing with me."

-- from Let the Rail Splitter Awake by Pablo Neruda

世奇在他版上轉寄了 "台北電影節：如果我必須死一千次．台灣左翼紀事 (IF I HAVE TO DIE 1000 TIMES)", 提到電影最後是以聶魯達的這首詩的這個片段作為終結。

I am nothing more than a poet: I love all of you,
I wander about the world I love;

in my country they gaol miners
and soldiers give orders to judges.

But I love even the roots
in my small cold country,

if I had to die a thousand times over
it is there I would die,
if I had to be born a thousand times over
it is there I would be born

near the tall wild pines
the tempestuous south wind
the newly purchased bells.
Let none think of me.

Let us think of the entire earth
and pound the table with love.

I don’t want blood again
to saturate bread, beans, music:

I wish they would come with me:
the miner, the little girl,
the lawyer, the seaman,
the doll-maker,
to go into a movie and come out
to drink the reddest wine.

I did not come to solve anything.
I came here to sing
and for you to sing with me.

From somewhere in the Americas, May 1948 (Translated by Waldeen)
(可惜不會西班牙文，這英文給出的韻味遠不如文章中的中文翻譯。)

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part III

Turning Point

That morning, her father drove her eldest sister to Lotus du Coeur to change shift with Chong-Lan's mother, who took care of her at night. Married and moved to Hu-Wei, her eldest sister accompanied Chong-Lan all the way here, rain or shine. Always, she quickly prepared Chong-Lan's food and responded to her needs with great care at every moment. She had had become the important source of love and warmth for Chong-Lan.

"If it's not sweet, come back for an exchange!" Chong-Lan urged the student volunteers to eat more Chinese dates. One bite after another, she bit into the fruit with crispy and juicy sounds. Chong-Lan said, now that she had a break from IV drips, she had to take full advantage of it and eat more. Otherwise, she had to get an IV drip again soon. A while later, a nurse came in to disinfect the wound on her shoulder where drugs were injected in. Talking through the nurse's arm, Chong-Lan suggested to everybody have lunch together at Cafe Taiwan. Then, she was discussing the new menu with some senior volunteers.

I contribute so I exist, because I feel others' care.
Your happiness is my most sincere hope, because I am loved in the same way.
Your smile is what I hope for. Wish you peace forever.
There are countless events and barriers in life. You have me with you along all paths of life.

At noon, student volunteers came as they promised to do a sign language show for Chong-Lan. In a good mood, Chong-Lan, lying in her bed, took big bites from her plate.

Because she had fully accepted what her life would bring on, every moment of get-together was filled with joy despite her family's hard time to truly let go. Because Chong-Lan greeted every caring face so generously with her shining smile, friends and volunteers could enjoy being her company without any worry and could learn to accept the necessary path of life. Nevertheless, the psychological storm that she went through was so heart-tearing that, even after a long period, it was still a dreadful memory.

"It was 2005, about January 10th plus, my doctor told me I might have something more than a stomach ulcer!" Chong-Lan said that her doctor made an appointment for her with the colorectal division, and the surgeon insisted that she must get an imaging test the next day.

Next day after the test was done, Chong-Lan kept feeling that something was wrong and took to read the report. "What!" She uttered in panic, "Rectal... cancer." Chong-Lan read it out loud, word by word. She turned to her eldest sister and asked, "why is it written rectal cancer?" Her sister tried to console her by saying that it was written on the report that it SEEMED to be rectal cancer.

As if in a trial, it was confirmed in the clinic that she had cancer. "How old are you?" the doctor asked Chong-Lan. "35." With a sigh, the doctor said, "At such young age! It was kind of late." "Yesterday when I examined you by palpation, I already wanted to tell you that you may have rectal cancer, but without scientific tests, I couldn't be entirely sure."

The doctor told her the definite answer, and he urged Chong-Lan to begin her treatment soon. With the advanced technology that we have nowadays, it should not be too late.

"You must do it!" The doctor's words overwhelmed her mind. Everything seemed to stop moving in the clinic. About a minute later, tears started to fall. She did not cry, but her tears kept falling. Finally, she could not sit still any longer. She turned to her sister and began to cry very hard. "How come? How come!" An unanswered question tore up her heart with pain and grief.

It was really cold that day and drizzling in the air. "How can it be so cold, so very cold!" Recalling the piercing cold, Chong-Lan said it was probably from the hard blow that she had just received. After walking out of the clinic, she and her sister cried all the way through the long corridor inside the hospital and all the way on their drive home.

Although wearing more than enough warm clothes, Chong-Lan could not feel any warmth. "It was so chilly that I cold feel it throughout my bones!" In the car, she kept telling her sister that she felt so cold, while tears were persistently falling down and still did not stop when they got home. That day, it seemed to be such a long way home!

"I'm still young. How can it be!?" When Chong-Lan recalled this experience, she could not help but contracted her eyebrow. At that time, she suffered in deep confoundedness.

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part II

Sign

"One night I had a dream. I dreamed about my own funeral."

Looking ahead, eyes sparkling, Chong-Lan said, "It's held at home, and I can remember very clearly which picture of me was used!"

The ambience was full of warmth. It did not have a trace of sorrow from the funeral. So did Chong-Lan recall. Her funeral was not plain white as a traditional one, but decorated with her favorite pink flowers. There were fragrant lilies, not the usually-used chrysanthemum. "I can remember clearly who came to attend my funeral! There were my boss, colleagues, my boyfriend, my family, cousins, and [buddhist] sisters." Chong-Lan said that in fact she did not know at that moment any Tzuchi medical volunteers, though now they were very much like friends and seniors to her. But, she knew they were Tzuchi sisters in her dream.

Chong-Lan did not feel sad that she dreamed about her own funeral. The next day when she went to work at the Chinese medical clinic, she took out the picture in her purse and asked her colleagues that, in case she would have an accident and could not speak consciously, they must remind her family of which picture ought to be used in the funeral. "Nuts!" Her colleagues nagged at her. A few days later, a cousin called to chat and Chong-Lan retold her dream. Her cousin told her to buy a lottery, saying she might get the first prize!

This was the dream she had half a year before discovering cancer. She could still recall clearly, and she was preparing little by little for her ideal funeral.

Posing in front of the huge poster of A Story of Endless Love, a Korean TV romance, the picture captured Chong-Lan's joy from her holidays aborad. "The girl in this romance died from cancer. Look at me, now I'm also a star, now I also have cancer!" Flipping through the photo album, Chong-Lan laughed. This was the trip to Korea that took place two years ago, before she knew about her illness.

As a matter of fact, the signs of illness had had appeared for quite a while. Maybe it was her positive attitudes that allowed her to enjoy her journey. When her boss knew about Chong-Lan's planned trip to Korea, he attemped to stop her. He told her that he would pay for the deposits required by the travel agency, because he was worried that, in case something would go wrong in Korea, Chong-Lan would not be able to get any help. However, Chong-Lan still thought that her diarrhea and blood in the stool were caused by the usual problem - stomach ulcer. "As long as I don't eat anything spicy in Korea." Chong-Lan convinced herself to go and not to care so much about it!

Two months later, the first downturn of her life soon launched its ambush.

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part I

"Perhaps from tomorrow, I'll be breathing very, very heavily! I know it's a necessary path. But now I'm very happy, very content!"

Laughters spilled through her door. A window open towards the west greeted the afternoon sunshine. The light wandered freely, passing every corner of her hospital chamber. Chong-Lan, checked in again into Lotus du Coeur Hospice, liked to open her window and draw away the curtain, so she could enjoy the soothing wind, so she could savor the delicious food to her heart's delight, and so she could be nutured by love and warmth from people surrounding her.

By the end of the sentence, her throat had suddenly tightened up, again Chong-Lan had to fight with her only weapon - coughing - against the lymph liquid that sprawled over her lung. Seemingly, she had exhasted all the strength she could garner. Bean-size sweats permeated through her hair. At the next second, however, her twisted eyebrow would loosen up into a full blossom and she was again the joyful girl who loved to share her life stories with voluteers and told jokes as if she had settled beyond life-and-death worries.

Besides the constant and severe pain transmitted all the way up from her leg, she had to, with great efforts, deal with the feeling that she was gradually losing her strength. "Staying in Lotus du Coeur is nothing but relaxing and pleasant. It's an 'easy job' for which I don't need to punch cards and work but still get paid, not like the docs and the nurses who have to work so hard!" Chong-Lan's words always came as a surprise and made people laugh.

After loosing her health and her love, Chong-Lan felt that she had actually gained more.

瓊蘭 Chong-Lan 2007 -- Introduction

Chong-Lan, the youngst daughter of my eldest uncle, was a cousin from my dad's side. She was a joyful girl who loved to chat and joke around with people. In April this year, she bidded goodbye to us and went to Heaven for her new job as a fairy.

Before she left, she temporarily stayed in the Lotus du Coeur (心蓮) hospice at the Tzuchi Hospital, Da-Lin. As she always did, soon she gained the hearts of doctors, nurses, buddhist sisters and volunteers. Everybody just loved her so much! Thanks to them, we had a 20-page booklet recording the last three years of her life on earth.

As Chong-Lan's dear little cousin, I was not there to say goodbye in person, but I would like to translate this little booklet so that I could share her life, her thoughts, and her happiness with my friends and whoever bumping into this blog and happening to be reading these posts.

Note: Tzuchi is a buddhist hospital, attracting many buddhist volunteers who are called "sisters" (since most of them are female). The sisters, not like the catholic sisters, are usually not nuns.