Understanding

Unless postponed for some unexpected reason, we will travel to New York City the coming Wednesday so that I can have the surgery Thursday. I have to be careful not to pick up any infection such as cold, flu, diarrhea, and skin infection to cause a delay. Of course, it is also important that the surgeons will be in good shape.

I will go under general anesthesia and therefore will not feel any pain during the 3 to 4 hour procedure, but surely afterward. Because of the inclination of radiation-traumatized skin not to close, I will be in the hospital at least for four nights and maybe more.

Thank you all for your love and caring. Obviously, the update will stop at least for once if not more. Please remember us in your prayers and thoughts and I look forward to talking to you again. I enjoy the opportunities of sharing very much. It actually has helped me greatly in sorting out and clarifying my own thoughts. I am so lazy that I usually just write down a few key words and phrases about my thoughts. In order to share them, I have to write them down logically which, in turn, compels me to thought them through with diligence.

Sharing: (Four things came to my mind. But I chose the heaviest topic because it might be a while before I can share again.)

Why faith?

Aside from those who are undetermined yet, we all believe something: some believe in God, some believe God does not exist, and some believe there is not enough evidence to determine either way. Faith is a very subjective matter. I do not consider its subjectivity as a deficiency. Excellent scientists and researchers are always those who can first subjectively think of and believe in a good hypothesis in order to eliminate the vast number of invalid ones that would take limited time and resources away from finding and validating the truth. In short, the process is subjective belief followed by objective/subjective validation.

As I shared earlier, I had a realization of how corrupted and cruel human beings (including myself) could be after I graduated from college and had a taste of “the real world out there”. Around the same time, I also met a number of Christians who were good witnesses of their faith. At that crossroad, the questions for me were:

Which offers more meaning and a better purpose: believing in God, not believing, or being unsure?

Which offers a better light and vision, believing, not believing or not being sure?

Which offers more dynamics and energy, believing, not believing or not being sure?

Obviously, my answers to all the questions were believing in God. This was the humble beginning of my journey of faith. It is kind of like believing in true love or not. Some evolution biologists argue against the true love. For example, they say that even the sacrificial love of parents is motivated by leaving their legacy behind through their offsprings. While there is no tangible way of proving or disproving the existence of love, I, like the majority, choose to believe in it because I do feel it, know our need and thirst for it, and dwell and thrive in it. It also offers a much better meaning and vision than the alternative.

After that beginning, it has been the validation with objective and subjective evidence abounding around us such as the beauty of life, the wonder of the universe (e.g., http://highspirit.blog.com/1548817/), the conscience inside, the love I felt, the personal experiences, and the Word.

There will likely be sufferings that are so great that will make me complain, cry, afraid, and even wanting to give up. But none of those would change my answers to the aforementioned questions.

May this find you and your loved ones in good spirit and health

You can find previous updates in http://highspirit.blog.com/

We went to Sloan-Kettering for MRI, pre-op tests and meeting with the surgeon this past Tuesday. There were a couple of glitches, which made it hectic, but we did get everything done and got home about 11pm. After viewing the MRI, the surgeon was pretty positive about getting the tumor out completely but also talked about possible risks including significant blood loss due to vein damage, positive margin on the artery, developing blood clog afterward, wound not closing due to radiation damage of the skin, etc. (Sometimes, I am not sure I want to be aware of them because not having the surgery is hardly an option.) I will only loss one muscle completely and hence won’t be very much handicapped. If everything goes well, I will be able to get out of the hospital after five nights, which is longer than the hospital stay of a C-section, and the stitches come out in three weeks.

My appetite is even better now. I am no longer the last one to finish the meal and even brown rice tastes good now. I thought it was normal a couple of weeks ago simply because I forgot what normal is like. Considering how long it took the appetite to recover, it is pretty scary how much damage the chemo did to my digest track.

Some inquired because I missed the “Sunday deadline”. Sorry to have you worried. The update is late because I was pre-occupied with something wonderful over the weekend, i.e., my younger brother married a great girl this past Saturday and I got to attend it. Even the snowstorm could not spoil it although, unfortunately, two of my nephew/niece could not make it due to flight cancellation caused by the storm. I have hoped to see everybody but I am very thankful regardless.

Today was also very busy with teaching and a number of things and hence I will have to defer my sharing.

May this email find you and your loved ones in good spirit and health.

I am very thankful for being able to witness for HIM this morning and thank you for all your prayers and blessings.

I learnt the result of Feb. 28th CT scan on Monday and the news was not as good as what I have hoped. The tumors in my lungs have grown somewhat since last CT about two months ago. The growth is neither dramatic nor negligible. Fortunately, it is not so bad that the anesthetist may call off the surgery. Additionally, no new tumor was found.

While I understand the priority was given to the local problem at the first stage of the battle, i.e., the chemo was scaled back so that the radiation could be carried out without interruption, I have always hoped that the chemo and life style change could have kept the tumors under control with no or minimal growth. On the other hand, it is something to be thankful that the primary tumor was indeed shrunk by the combination of the chemo and radiation. I will get an MRI this coming Tuesday to see if it has shrunk away from the artery to facilitate its complete removal.

The top skin tuned red and then black and, subsequently, began to peel off all around the radiation site. It is very itchy and somewhat painful. Fighting the urge to scratch takes a lot of self-control and energy. Thankfully, antihistamine does give adequate relief during the nighttime and the skin is basically “intact and infection free” according to the radiation doctor. For somebody who grew up with a single soap for everything including laundry, skin care is something new but there is a first time for everything. Keeping it moisturized and clean all the time does take some work.

Will meet the surgeon and have the pre-op testing in NYC next Tu.

Sharing:

When disaster strikes, most do have a tendency to think it might be a punishment handed out by God for something I did wrong. It is a very defendable explanation because nobody is perfect and everyone without exception has a pretty long list of sins except we just sin differently. After all, God is just and handing out rewards and punishments is His job as the ultimate judge. This might be the reason why Job’s friends were quick to suggest that his suffering must be due to his sin. When I read the book of Job first time a long time ago, I just thought his friends were very cruel. It was almost like sprinkling salt on open wounds. However, there is perhaps a much deeper reason for us to think so. We are so afraid of suffering that we need to pretend that there is a simple logic behind who gets it so that we can feel secure about it. For some, the thinking is that if I take care of God, God will take care of me (or at least leave me alone) because I have paid my dues. It may take various forms such as if I worship HIM in certain way or at some frequency, if I recite certain spiritual slogans, pray in certain ways, or offer money, behave in certain ways, etc. However, there is a big fundamental problem for this kind of understanding. Do we do good as a consequence of God’s unconditional love or we do good so that we can be loved by God (what happens to the unconditional part)? This mis-understanding also prevents us from really sympathizing with those who are suffering because somehow it makes us believe that we are doing something right and therefore are spared.

(I have to keep it short because I have to prepare for the class tomorrow and the trip to NYC.)

I talked to the surgeon on Monday and together we decided to have the surgery on March 29th and the pre-op consultation on the 13th. The surgeon also wanted to have the MRI done at Soan-Kettering.

The case manager of the insurance company called Thursday to say that, in addition to the surgery, the pre-op consultation with the surgeon, MRI at Sloan-Kettering and pre-op testing have all been approved. We are all very thankful about this.

If radiation were liquor, it is the kind with a huge hangover. Two weeks ago, I was very happy to complete it and thought the worst was over. What I did not know was that its effect is exponential and there is a significant time lag. The skin just got more ugly and uncomfortable to the extent that it is interfering with my sleep now. Mostly, it is itching and irritating instead of outright painful. The good news is that the tumor continues to shrink too. My digest track has been recovering faster than the skin in the radiation site until I got this unexplainable three-day diarrhea. Forget about gaining weight this week, maybe next week. At least it did not happen during my chemo.

I had the CT on Wed. but yet to hear the official result. It is something one hopes for a miracle while is somewhat worried about the possible bad news. It would be nice if somebody can read the film and give a report right on the spot. I guess the virtue of a patient is patience.

Sharing: I first read the story of Muhammad Yunus about a year ago when I was in doctor’s office waiting for the doctor to see one of my sons and I have told the story to my sons as well as others. Of course, the story has since become better known because Dr. Yunus became the latest laureate of Nobel peace prize toward the end of 2006.

Dr. Yunus got his Ph.D. in economics from Vanderbilt University in 1969. He then went back to his home country, Bangladesh, to teach economics in a University. The country was in the middle of a famine. He was there teaching the elegant theories of economics in the classroom to the elites of the country. But he would walk out of the classroom and see skeletons all around him, people waiting to die. He had a longing indicated something was missing in his life. He wanted to find out if there was anything he could do as a human being to delay or stop the death, even for a single person.

Then, he met a woman who was making bamboo stools. He found out that she made only two U.S. pennies each day. He could not believe anybody could work so hard and make such beautiful bamboo stools yet make such a tiny amount of profit. She explained to him that because she didn’t have the money to buy the bamboo to make the stools, she had to borrow from the trader-and the trader imposed the condition that she had to sell the product to him only, at the price he decided. She was virtually in bonded labor to this trader because she did not have the 20 cents to buy the bamboo. She suffered for 20 cents and nobody did anything about it. He then took a student of his and went around the village for several days and came up with a list of forty-two such people. What they needed added up to twenty-seven dollars. He felt ashamed of himself for being part of a society which could not provide even twenty seven dollars to forty two hard working, skilled human beings. He took the money out of this pocket and gave it to his student. He said, “ You take this money and give it to thoes forty-two people that we met and tell them that it is a loan, but they can pay me back whenever they are able to. In the mean time, they can sell their products wherever they can get a good price.”

To make the long story short, what began as attentiveness to the suffering and needs of his fellow human beings’ became the foundation of a solution to poverty, i.e., micro-loans to the poorest of the poor. Equipped with his knowledge in economics and finances and sustained by his passion, he eventually founded the Grameen Bank on Oct. 2, 1983. The bank has now lent 5.1 billion dollars in 530 million loans which have empowered millions and millions to lift themselves out of the poverty which has been a breeding ground for extremists. Twenty-three countries including U.S now imitate the micro-loan model.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke)

May this find you and your loved ones in good spirit and health.