A Bitter Blessing

[manequine]

It was more than a torture to sit in front of the doctor waiting for the result of MRI test. At the moment, a sinister thinking passed through my mind until the doctor eventually opened his mouth. He drove me into extreme anxiety by saying he would refer the image to the radiologist for advice. I had no other way but to wait another twenty minutes in the anteroom. Then my anxiety level was skyrocketing with time and regretted not having neglected to get a check earlier.

A week ago, I felt a little pain in the back where I had the irradiated spine. That morning I visited a hospital and had it x-rayed to get peace. I reassured myself saying to myself, “Nothing was to be founded in the course of twelve bone scans. However, against my expectation, the doctor recommended me to have a MRI test for further examination. I reserved the test for the next day, but I did not let anyone in my family know about it. I didn’t sleep well all night in the thought that if there is something wrong with the spine, it will be final. The next morning I hurried to the hospital and was put in the bed of the horrible machine again. The strange noises stroke my eardrums continuously, which accelerated my anxiety far more. I prayed to my God for another mercy. I reflected on my life asking myself what I had done wrong again. Nothing in particular. I tried to avoid excessive stress and abstain myself from eating unhealthy food. Above all, I never skipped having a checkup as instructed by my doctor. If so, why? The twenty minutes was so lengthy and tedious that it felt eternal.

In the meantime, a big part of my life was spent in the hospital getting a train of medical tests. After I got married, my wife failed to be pregnant several times. To have a baby, we visited the specialized clinic called obstetrics and gynecology to for five years. When Fortune smiled on me, my father went down with a paralysis. Though he successful in recovering from six hours of brain operation, his left part of the body was paralyzed, which forced him to stay on the sofa all day long. It was my duty to drop by the clinic to get a prescription and sometimes to take him to the hospital for checkup. I thought it was nothing if my father could live longer than the doctor expected: his life was limited to less than five years. Do you know what it is to have a deadline for life? Fortunately, he outlived his given time by seven years though he had to see his brain getting worse every day. What made me most painful was I alerted myself to his sudden breathlessness every night. He had periodical fits, which made it possible him to breathe normally. I had to run down the stair to take action to prevent his airway from being blocked. It was my routine job for more than ten years. To make matters worse, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer and visiting the hospitals has been my every day business up to now. But it is not end. By the time I thought I got over my disease to some extent, my mother broke her hip joint right before Chusuk (Korean Thanksgiving Day) one fall. I spent almost two months in the hospital staying alongside her bed. However, as an old saying goes, “Misfortune never comes single.” After the operation, she got four major surgical operations in succession; she lost her the thyroid gland to the cancer and she went near having her right leg cut off because her blood vessel was clogged up out of the blue. After six hours of surgical operation, she could walk again.

The nurse called me in after twenty minutes or so. The doctor smiled at me and said, “By luck, it is not cancer.” He added, “I suspected multiple marrow cancer. Your spines just proved to be changed into the state of being fat”

I revived again. A disease could be a bless if it could be cured in that it gives us a chance to check our lives on the way.    

[Brenda]

그동안의 선생님의 노고에 박수드리며 좋은 결과 들으신거 축하드려요^^

[도련이]

선생님~~항상 건강하세요~~~홧팅

[스마일]

정말 아무일없어 감사해요~^^
오래오래 저희들과 함께해주세요~
사랑합니다~^^

[grace]

I pray you will get healthy~

[musuri]

앞으로 선생님께 안좋은 일은 더 이상 없을것입니다. 오랜 시련으로 다시 회생하신 삶이시니까요. 힘내세요!