Strange Dreams, Indeed…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Cancer Diary, Commentary, Health, Humour, Living in Korea, Lost Geographies, Odds and Ends..., Uncategorized
Back in the day – but not so long ago – I was writing about my experience being treated for bowel cancer. Not an experience that I would like to repeat, I will admit, but some others in the small hospital ward were clearly in worse shape than myself; looking back, I realise how fortunate I was not to need chemotherapy as well.
There were, however, a number of unexpected sequelae to that event, but one of them was really unanticipated… one that took a long time to understand because of where it took place…
It’s been a while since I wrote on this topic, which I should probably acknowledge is a Very Good Thing, but over eight years after the operation, I came to a strange realisation: something was missing – an element that used to haunt my dreams sometimes had suddenly disappeared, the kind of thing that takes a while to realise, possibly for age-related reasons. What happened?
Truth to tell, this was not the only odd thing that happened after I lost a foot of colon. One thing that happened was that the resectioning somehow seemed to cause elevated blood pressure, which initially prevented me from getting a post-operative colonoscopy until medication levelled it out (interesting that the cardiologist’s first response was to put me on drugs rather than ask whether there was a nutritional imbalance in my body caused by diet, but I’ll let that pass).
Another thing that happened, which was perhaps more predictable, was the termination of my contract with my employer due to being unable to conduct lessons as normal because I was undergoing treatment. Two elements of irony followed on from this: first, the day I received the release call was actually the day I had the Faecal Diversion Device pulled out and was formally released from YUMC in Daegu (and yes, this was followed up with a colonoscopy: what a bum rap!); and second, I then found a job in Jinju with the Air Force Technical High School for a year, reapplied at the end of the contract and was rejected, and ultimately ended up back in the same Daegu job for what turned out to be my second longest-lasting job since arriving here. I was basically forced to move between cities, at great expense, during my convalescent period.
Speaking of arrival, I am sitting here now, tapping this out on my little keyboard, having realised last night that July 14th, 2026, marks the twenty-third anniversary of my entry visa being stamped at Seogwipo Airport, and again, my thanks to Mr. Kang, a Korean Customs officer who very kindly prevailed upon the Bureau de Change to get my New Taiwanese Dollars (the remnants of my final salary payment in Taiwan), despite the fact that it was so late at night and actually with the shutters already down prior to closing! I actually had to root out my old (first and original) UK passport to check… it’s been a long, long time.
My theme here, however, was one strange thing that took a long time to notice, because as you get older, you don’t stop having dreams when you sleep, but they do seem to become more difficult to recall later. After the tumour was removed, and some way down the road thereafter, I suddenly realised that I was no longer having any nightmares. If the truth were told, I do still have ‘dark’ dreams sometimes, but there is no longer anything that causes me to wake up in a sweat and/or with my heard pounding; the removal of the cancer seems to have ended that entirely, a totally unforeseen consequence of the surgery or, at least, it seems a strange coincidence. Sleeping does become more difficult as you age, but there is never any shortage of dreams; more recently, I started taking doses of magnesium L-threonate a few hours before hitting the sack, and interestingly, unwanted 3:00 a.m. wake-ups also seem to have declined somewhat.
The whole post-operative space seems to have been a storm of odd and unexpected events, and not without stresses of its own – the turmoil of changing jobs, deaths of relatives, and the actual end of teaching here in Korea, as employers (or was it really the recruiters?) seem to have finally decided that I am too old for it and a change of career was forced on me (again!). The KPS even awarded me a pension!
But sleep… who knew that losing a foot of my colon would take away my bad dreams? Even at this late stage, I am still encountering new experiences which make me pause and think.
