Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part VIII

Voyage

“When I’m gone, just think of me like I take my suitcase and go on a trip abroad!”

On this New Year’s day, Chong-Lan put her words into action. With her eldest sister, her second sister and her cousins, she began to organize her luggage: winter clothes, summer outfits, pants, shorts, dresses as well as shoes, purses, and her favorite lotion. Everything that one could think about was neatly packed up. She wanted to prepare for it earlier, so when it was time to go, she would not rush into a muddle. But this time, she had no plan to return.

With a clicking sound, she opened the suitcase that she had finished organizing for a while. “These are the shoes that I packed up. They are all old ones, a lot of ‘Skinnie’ [a shoe brand], though now I have to wear ‘Fattie’!” Chong-Lan made fun of herself.

“These are the clothes that I’ll put on the day when I pass away.” Chong-Lan displayed a green long-sleeved and round-necked shirt, with little flowered prints around the collar. To go with it, she had a pair of ivory-colored trousers and a pair of casual shoes in a similar color. “This is my favorite set of clothes. I always put them on when I go out. They are comfortable to wear and people are most familiar with them!” Chong-Lan said that simplicity was what mattered. But, being a woman after all, she also packed up a pair of lady’s shoes that she liked to wear.

Among all her clothes, there was also a little stuffed bear. Chong-Lan said that this was her favorite little bear that had been accompanying her since the first day of her surgery, so she would also like to bring it along on her journey.

There were quite a few of stuffs in her suitcase! There was a hand-sized bottle of lotion, which Chong-Lan always put on before going out. “I told my sister that she must apply this lotion on me. It smells a bit of perfume. It was my most familiar perfume.” Chong-Lan said that she had been using it for more than ten years, so when people smell this perfume, they would know that she is back.

There was also a necklace that her boyfriend gave her as a gift. Chong-Lan said that it was inflammable.

Besides her preparation for the upcoming journey, Chong-Lan also gave out her belongings one by one. She did not feel sad but instead cheered up by it. “I like to use stuffs with good quality, so if I can’t wear them, it’s not a good idea to just put them away.” Chong-Lan said that sometimes she liked to look cute, and that was why she bought a pair of cute boots. Since the daughter of her eldest sister was already 20 years old and since she liked them and looked good in them, Chong-Lan was more than happy to give her these boots. “If I keep on living, it’s all right. I won’t ask them back. I’ll just buy new ones because they will be fashionable,” laughed Chong-Lan.

There was also her jewelry. As the idiom goes, “Genuine gold is not fusible by fire,” it would be of no use to cremate all the items of her jewelry, so she decided to give away to whoever fit with them. Chong-Lan said that it was better that she gave away her belongings in person than that they were being forwarded after she passed away. “I feel so relaxed after giving them away! There’s nothing that I can’t let go of and there’s no more pressure. When I left these valuables at home, I was scared that they might get stolen, but after all, I have absolutely no need of these stuffs. I don’t wear them anyway.” Chong-Lan said it with certainty that she would not purchase jewelry anymore even if she could have lived for 30 more years.

Before Chinese New Year, Chong-Lan asked her eldest sister urgently to help her look for a card. A couple of years ago, Chong-Lan heard that in Do-Liu there was a blood-testing event to recruit marrow donors. “Heaven knows somehow there may be a lucky coincidence by God’s will. There are so many people in the whole world. It will be fantastic if there’s a good match.” With positive anticipation, she rolled up her sleeves, had her blood sample taken, and left her record in their archive.

It is even more unlikely to have a successful match than winning lottery. Chong-Lan said, “I didn’t expect that I’d have cancer, and now I’m not qualified anymore!” She asked her sister that, after finding her donor’s card, she should call the organization to remove her record so that it will not occupy any disk space, and also because she could not help if she is matched up.

Her optimistic personality also had a trace of casualness. “It came out of the blue!” Chong-Lan recalled that she still had a savings account and so she decided to monetarily adopt a child through a nonprofit organization. “I’m not married and I have no children.” Chong-Lan told her adopted child to call her auntie. Fearing that the child might be worried, Chong-Lan did not talk about her having cancer. Chong-Lan said that she would keep on her monetary adoption as long as she lived and that she planned to donate the rest of her savings in this account to the nonprofit organization.

“Time to eat,” called out her father from downstairs. Chong-Lan repacked her suitcase then closed it, and painstakingly, she stood up using the table to support herself. Feeling greatly relieved, she said, “Now they all know what to do!” Chong-Lan said that, if she was not prepared and her family would arrange something that she did not like, then “I’ll be upset!” Therefore, she had everything arranged. “I’m very happy that I could arrange everything by myself. I’m out of breath.”

In order not to have her parents feeling sad, Chong-lan tried to change the mood in her family by portraying it as going on a happy holiday trip abroad. Chong-Lan traveled overseas each year, sometimes with her sisters and sometimes with her mother. In fact, it also worked to cheer up herself. When death was coming within reach, she chose to face and accept it. She greeted the end with her own best wishes. It was not that different from traveling abroad or from emigrating, except that she would not come back again.

Holding onto the railing, she came downstairs step by step. She walked to the dinning table and sat down. Then, she took the big bowl that was designated for her and painted with the cartoon of Goofy dog. Chong-Lan always took a small sip of soup first, and then started to take big bites of every wonderful dish prepared by her mother.

Her father, who was retired from the Retired Soldier Engineering Association, and her mother did a very good job on the kitchen garden next to their house. “All the vegetables that we are eating today were planted in our kitchen garden, including cabbage, lettuce, peas, and radish in the soup.” In addition to vegetables, the rice and the fruits also came from their own farm. “We have a grape plant but it has no fruit yet. There are Java apples but we haven’t tasted them. We also have oranges, bananas, sugar canes, and sugar apples, one plant each. We have no longans anymore, and the coconut tree was dead, so now there’s no more coconut juice to drink.” Chong-Lan had no difficulty to point out every single detail in their kitchen garden.

Mealtime was Chong-lan’s happiest moements. Her father who was eating beside also took big bites of every dish. As for her mother, she would be working for a little bit more before join them for the meal. Although her parents did not talk much, their hard work was silently presented with the rich harvest from their garden.

If she did not show people her legs, probably nobody would have believed that Chong-Lan was ill.

“Some people who are a bit chubbier have legs bigger than yours!” consoled her mother, who could not stop feeling sorry for her daughter’s illness. Her mood fluctuated up and down with Chong-Lan’s conditions.
“Yeah, as long as I don’t cough,” responded Chong-Lan.
Her mother suggested, “I’ll help you replace the thin one with a thicker one!”
“I don’t want that. I want the thicker one replaced by a thinner one. Otherwise, it’s way too heavy, too heavy to walk up the stairs!”
“Okay, deal. I’ll get a thinner one for you.”

Mother and daughter finally reached their agreement.

“My mum is a simple countrywoman.” Sometimes Chong-Lan would tell her, “Mum, I love you the most!” And then, her mother would reply, “If I don’t love you, whom shall I love!”

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part VII

Attitude

“It looks normal like this, but when compared with my other leg, it’s apparently abnormal,” laughed Chong-Lan at her own words. Moving her toes around, Chong-Lan showed us her legs that are of absolutely different sizes. “It began to swell since December last year. It’s because of lymph liquid that my right leg is swollen. In addition to the pricking pain, it also gives me the burning sensation from time to time.” To cool it down, Chong-Lan liked to stretch her leg out of the blanket. She said that she should take very good care of it!

“Sore, painful. I don’t feel well neither lying down nor sitting still. My legs are rigid when I stand up. My thighs hurt and they become very hard. It burns and feels hot and scorching…” described Chong-Lan her own conditions. However, she was reluctant to follow the suggestions of Dr. Shih-Chi Chen and other nurses that they can install a Foley catheter for her or that she can use a bedpan. She was not even willing to use walking aids. Although she had to go to the restroom quite frequently, she would have rather tottered, with her back hunched like an aged lady and her weight on the right leg, and approached the restroom inch by inch.

As long as she could move on her own, Chong-Lan insisted to do it herself because these were the only occasions when she could still have some exercise. Most important of all, Chong-Lan did not wish to bring more burden to others.

Today, Chong-Lan’s boss, along with some female colleagues from the clinic, came to visit her in the hospital chamber. Out of their expectation, Chong-Lan greeted them with a cozy and relaxed look. “Thank you very much for visiting me,” said Chong-Lan with a big smile.

“You must have put on some make-up!?” Her boss wondered out loud. “You look awesome!”
“No, I didn’t!” said Chong-Lan. She asked if they were surprised.
“Wow,” uttered her boss in a surprised tone, “Did I take the wrong guess?”
Beside them, Chong-Lan’s eldest sister ended the debate by saying, “She looks prettier and prettier everyday in the hospice!”
“Yeap, since I’m here to alleviate my pain.” said Chong-Lan. The only thing was that her right leg was so swollen that it was difficult for her to walk around, whereas her left one grew thinner and thinner. “One side is a giraffe, and the other is an elephant!”

It was almost Chinese New Year. In addition to paying for her health insurance in the last two years, Chong-Lan’s boss handed her a big red envelope for every Chinese New Year.

“Rest well and stay healthy,” said her boss.
“I’ve done my best and there’s no more I can do,” responded Chong-Lan with a laugh.
“Just live your life as it was before!” Her boss told her that the most important thing in life is one’s feelings, which are also what accounts in interpersonal relationships, and that we do not have to care too much about being able to live longer or shorter since it was not the real meaning of life.

“I feel very happy here and feel surrounded by warmth!” Every time when Chong-Lan returned to Lotus du Coeur, she could settle down easily and tried to relax as much as she could, which was very different from many other patients’ unwillingness to stay for even one second. “I happen to be able to talk now. I’m very happy. In the past two years, it’s been me who’s enjoying my life. Sometimes I feel like a real queen! This week I can’t get a massage because I got an acute inflammation; otherwise, my family and the nurses always come to give me massages. I eat a lot and it’s the same when I go back home. I really feel like a queen!”

“Actually, I was already an optimistic person before.” Chong-Lan said that she would think about the upside as well as the downside. Since she liked to watch comedies, she would blend the gags into her real life and make it as a funny episode. In this way, she could adapt herself quickly into new situations and always think from the bright side.

Some said that Chong-Lan was thinking from the dark side when she decided to quit chemotherapy. They argued that, perhaps after some while, there would be more advanced chemotherapies and Chong-Lan could be cured then! However, Chong-Lan did not think in the same manner. She did not want to become constantly occupied by chemical medications. “I was not thinking from the downside. Although I gave up on chemo, so far I haven’t got the attitude that ‘I’m gonna die.’ I won’t be thinking that ‘I’m gonna die anyways’ and so just look at everything in a pessimistic way.”

What Chong-Lan was thinking about was that she might live a shorter life but she must live it more happily. Especially when she felt the love and warmth from people surrounding her, she really enjoyed it and felt ever happier. The only exception was when she was coughing very hard or when her leg was hurting a lot, then she would really feel that her deadline was approaching. “But coming to the hospice and with Dr. Chen’s attentive care, my pain is eased and I feel… erh, like the distance to death becomes a bit farther again. Also, the sisters come to talk to me everyday and give me warmth. That makes me feel really happy. My eldest sister told me that I have become prettier and prettier everyday since I came here.”

“Really!” Chong-Lan said, “I also have the feeling that I’m less and less like a patient, like I’m pretending to be one. I’m so happy!”

Skipping ageing, there are only birth, illness, and then death. In this way, everyone will remember her young and pretty look. Chong-Lan said that it was as if her lessons of life were compressed into one short class. She thanked God for his mercy that her cancer was discovered before she ever stepped into the next stage of life — getting married and having children — and that she did not have to worry that nobody would take care of her if she have had become ill at an old age. In particular, she thanked God for granting her the gift that her cancer was not the most tormenting type and that during her illness she came to know many things and many people and benefited from countless love.

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part VI

Enjoy

“I may become the first Lotus du Coeur patient who needs to go on diet!”

Seated in the wheelchair, Chong-Lan rolled out of Lotus du Coeur with her eldest sister pushing behind. Passing by the temple, the prayer room, and the Linden Residence, she was heading for Café Taiwan on the third floor. This is the second time she checked in at Lotus du Coeur. Chong-Lan was probably the most loyal customer of this café. Most of the time, she would ask for afternoon tea and snacks to be served in her hospital chamber. Although it was a little chilly today, she felt cheerful with the sunshine. “Usually I take a Garden Sandwich, but coming down here today, I feel like a change. Since it’s quite chilly, hotpot will be an awesome choice!”

A boiling hotpot was served at her table. Chong-Lan asked her sister to send back the bowl of rice which was served along and to ask for an empty bowl back. She said that nothing would be wasted in this way. Then, one by one, Chong-Lan placed every kind of vegetable into the pot. With chopsticks in one hand and a spoon in the other, she savored the delicacy with great pleasure. There were carrots, tofu, broccolis, pumpkin…… so on and so forth.

“And the patient ends up eating the most!” In order to gain enough strength to maintain a good quality of life, Chong-Lan made efforts to eat sufficiently. She said that she was trying to break the record in Lotus du Coeur – a Lotus du Coeur patient ate so much that she would have to go to the weight losing class!

Undergoing the period of surgery and chemotherapy was the toughest days for Chong-Lan, but thanks to her open-minded personality, she could always spot heart-brightening happiness out of bitterness. In the evening before the surgery, Chong-lan told her eldest sister, “My skin is so fine and scar-free. Since I saw some people got very ugly scars before, maybe I should ask the surgeon to sew my cut better? I should take my eyeliner and write on my belly saying, ‘Please sew me better.’” Worrying that the surgeon might laugh too much while sewing, she decided to ask the surgeon in person. “I was still thinking about my appearance just hours before the surgery,” laughed Chong-Lan at herself.

“The soup is so tasty!” With satisfaction on her face, Chong-Lan was in a good mood to keep on chatting.

Another time was during the surgery to install an artificial vein. She was only partially sedated, so finally she got the chance to show the entire surgical crew how hilarious she could be. Chong-lan told the surgeon that, since it was quite boring in the operation room, she was going to tell them a joke. “I was working in a Chinese medical clinic, and one day there was this patient who walked in for a visit. There are several doctors in our clinic, so the front desk asked him whether he would like to ask for any doctor in particular. The patient looked around, and then he asked for Dr. Po-Ya Chang. Our front desk was just totally baffled! And the patient said, ‘If there is no doctor named as such, how come all the licenses on the wall has this name on them?’” And, it brought endless laughters to the operating room. (Note: Dr. Po-Ya Chang was then the Minister of Health.)

Not only did Chong-Lan enjoy very much from food savoring, but perhaps, she also digested away lots of worries in this process. Last year in August, accompanied by her mother, her second sister and her cousin, Chong-Lan went on her last trip abroad. The destination was her most favorite New Zealand. “I really miss their ice cream! It's delicious and tasted very thick. Although it was the middle of winter, it wasn't cold and I felt really, really comfortable! It's a pity now that I can't eat anything icy, but anyway, I can't get it here and now.” Chong-Lan could always turn herself to the bright side at the next second, while her company was still trying to squeeze out some words of comfort.

There was also a funny incident from that trip. Since her attending physician at Chang Gung was in Australia for an advanced training, Chong-Lan asked the nurse to e-mail him, saying that, to ease his homesickness for local delicacies, she was going to drop two glutinous rice wraps when her plane flew over Australia, and that he must not miss his catch.

“Sometimes when I drove, I'd have the wildest imagination.” Like a fairy holding her magic wand, Chong-Lan would murmur “green, green” when she drove close to traffic lights. When the lights turned out to be really green, she would think that her magic indeed worked that day and there must have been an elf helping her. Every time when she went back to the Tzuchi Hospital in Da-Lin for medical appointments and stopped by the parking entrance for a ticket, she would start to murmur, “Give me a parking spot. Please give me a parking spot. The closer the better!” Chong-Lan said it really worked, about nine out of ten times. In the end, Chong-Lan laughed as if embarrassed and said that sometimes it did not work, and that if it had worked each time, she would have become a billionaire by now. “Forget it. I just wish everything would go well.”

More than ten minutes later, she came to the bottom of her hotpot. Chong-Lan's cheeks became as rosy as if she had put on some make-up. Patting her own cheeks, Chong-Lan said that she was so full from this afternoon snack break that it was almost like she was having dinner. And, she would like to come back on Sunday.

Chong-Lan 2007 -- Part V

Let Go

“Very bitter feelings!” Chong-Lan furrowed her brow. She said that perhaps because she was quite allergic to medicine, she felt piercing pain all over her body with a particular shot in the treatment. “From my scalp to the bottom of my feet, including my fingers and my lower belly, everything hurts like needles pricking. I grabbed my sister's hands and shouted for help.” In each round, she had to endure ten minutes of agony, then it was chemical injections again, day in and day out without breaks. Chong-Lan said that she kept vomitting. There was this indescribable feeling of discomfort and she could hardly eat anything.

“I didn't feel well at places where there is bodily fluid.” Chong-Lan said that her eyes were sore, her mouth weird and so was her urinary canal. She simply could not sleep well. The most unbearable part for Chong-Lan was the smell of pesticide all over her body. The smell of chemotherapy was very similar to that of pesticide – “very very smelly!” It was not possible to get rid of that irritating odor. When returning home, she could still smell it in her room and in the toilet.

“I just felt it was not that kind of life that I want.” Following this sentence, Chong-Lan closed her eyes. Even though it had been more than one year since she gave up chemotherapy, her fear was still intense and vivid. “After I truly gave up and decided to stop further chemotherapies, I felt so at ease!” Chong-Lan finally had all her stress released.

Nonetheless, it was not easy to make this decision – a seemingly life-or-death choice. In addition to her peace of mind, there was this earnest hope of her family that further treatments might render a better chance of survival, and there was also this prospect that she could have a family with her boyfriend, despite the slim chance of a miracle.

In order to make her final decision, the always-dad-and-mom's-good-daughter “ran away” from home. Chong-Lan told us that in that period she took shelter at her sixth auntie's and refused to answer any phone calls from her father, mother and her eldest sister. “I wanted to think it through – what should I do after all? Should I give up or continue the chemos?” Ten days passed, Chong-Lan had her head clear little by little from all the conflicting thoughts. “I won't be swayed by anybody. I'm going to make my own decision!”

Amid the contrast of continuing and not continuing chemotherapy, Chong-Lan no longer hesitated. “I reckon that we are all gonna get to the last stage, that is, death. So, I decided I wanted to... it doesn't matter I'd live a shorter life, but I wanted to be free and happy!” Chong-Lan said that it was not her desire to suffer just to live longer. She would rather live shorter, yet happily and freely. “So, I decided to give up chemo, but to concentrate my happy days all in this period.” Although giving up chemotherapy, Chong-Lan did not become desperate for her life. Instead, she wanted to make worth every of her living minutes and each of her breathing seconds. Therefore, she always said, “I'm so happy and free, so maybe there's still hope. But even not so, I have to follow the nature's rules all the same.”

When she had made up her mind, Chong-Lan tried to communicate with her family because she loved them the most. “Let's follow the nature's rules!” Chong-Lan told her parents and her sisters that since it failed the first time, how could the second time be more successful? It was risky at the first time and she was even hospitalized in the quarantine. She argued that same things could still be possible at the second time and that perhaps she would have ended her life earlier than giving up chemotherapy. So, let the nature rule. When you are deemed to live, you live.

“I'm the one who's ill. It's better that I make the decision.” Chong-Lan said that she would live as long as the nature allowed; otherwise, when she suffered, others also suffered with her, so it was better to see her being happier. Given that she would arrive at the last stage of her life no matter what, with the only difference being that chemotherapy might have given her more time, she asked her family to accept her decision.

It was hard to describe how sorry she felt that her dream of marriage was broken once again. “But when I think about it, God indeed has mercy on me: He granted me this relationship. The only thing is that I am very sorry to him. We would have had a family, but it ends up like this.”

Since she was a child, Chong-Lan had been the funny jokester in both her parents’ sides of families. Chong-Lan’s eldest sister, who always kept the hope that chemotherapy might somehow turn out to be effective and always encouraged Chong-Lan to continue, said that Chong-Lan was a lovely girl with a good heart. She was thoughtful and cared for others all the time. Even after arriving at Lotus du Coeur, she was still worried about one of her aunts who was financially rather troubled. She kept thinking about giving her some money, but was also worried that her anut might be embarrassed by it. Another example was about her eldest sister’s son. He had to take the college entrance exam in May, and Chong-Lan was concerned that he might be distracted from his exam preparation if she would be gone around that time. Chong-Lan was like a lovely clown. She attracted attention wherever she went and brought happiness to everybody. The atmosphere was always filled with joy when she was around.

Chong-Lan was strong and persistent, and she could endure a great deal of hardships. Right after the surgery and during the two weeks of lying in bed, you could rarely hear her moaning out of pain, even though everyone could see that it was painstaking and felt sorry. Chong-Lan, the extravert and outgoing girl according to her sister, was determined to follow her own guts and to return to the “Chong-Lan” that had been familiarly known to everyone.