Life without Stomach/胃のない生活

At the beginning of May, I was expecting "Kyoto in spring" but it was a bit chilly due to the unfortunate drizzle. Although it seemed that people returned to the large hospital which was about half the number before coronavirus, there was almost no waiting time for blood collection. I went down to the basement and the CT scan started immediately. I was a little happy to notice that the old Toshiba had been replaced by the latest Canon device. However, when the contrast agent entered my bloodstream, I not only felt hot all over my body as usual, but also felt sick. Although it wasn't so bad to push the button that I was forced to hold all the time.

５月初旬、『春の京都』を期待していたら生憎の小雨で肌寒い。大病院に人が戻ってきてはいたが、コロナ前の半分くらいで血液採取の待ち時間はほぼなし。地下に降りて、CT検査もすぐに始まった。古いToshibaから最新のCanonに装置が代わっているのに気づき、ちょっと嬉しい。ところが、造影剤が血中に入ると、いつものように全身が熱くなるだけでなく、気分が悪くなった。いつも握らされるボタンを押すほどではなかったが。

The weather was bad, so we gave up walking around the downtown area and bought dinner at a newly opened bakery in the basement of the hospital. For lunch, we went to our favorite long-established coffee shop, and I ordered the seasonal Nanohana Spaghetti. Japanese sweets were attached like Kyoto.

天気も悪いし、繁華街の散策は諦めて病院地下に新規開店していたベーカリーで夕食を購入した。ランチは恒例の老舗珈琲店からふね屋で、季節限定の菜の花スバゲッティをオーダーしてみた。京都らしく和菓子がついている。

It was delicious, but I couldn't wait for the coffee after the meal, so I went straight to the toilet and couldn’t come out for a while. I stumbled to the station, slept the whole time on the train, and then lay down for a few more hours after I got home.

美味かったが、食後のコーヒーを待てずにトイレに直行し、しばらく出てこれなかった。ふらつきながら駅まで歩き、電車のなかではずっと眠り、帰宅してさらに数時間横になった。

"You don't need a stomach."

The words of the doctor who said so pushed my back to the operation. The one-year survival rate after surgery is 70%, or 3 out of 10 will die. At that time, three celebrities were reported to have died of esophageal cancer one after another, but I was confident that I would be one of the remaining seven. In short, my ignorance led me to the surgical excision.

「胃なんかいらないんですよ」

そう言った主治医の言葉が手術へと背中を押した。術後一年の生存率が70%、つまり、10人に3人は死ぬ。当時、3人の有名人が相次いで食道癌で死亡と報道されたが、自分は残りの７人に入ると根拠のない自信さえあった。要するに、私は無知ゆえに摘出手術に踏み切ったのである。

"You can live without a stomach."

My wife spoke on behalf of my doctor later, but I didn't realize the seriousness of how living without a stomach would lower my QOL and that I would have to live with the aftereffects being called dumping syndrome for the rest of my life.

「胃がなくても生きてはいける」

のちにワイフが愚痴る私に主治医の真意を代弁してくれたが、胃がない生活がどれほどQOLを低下させ、ダンピング症候群という後遺症と一生付き合う深刻さをまったく認識していなかった。

Two weeks later, on the day we went to hear the test results, it was a refreshing "Kyoto in May." At a fixed position along the Kamogawa River, I always realize how good the environment is incomparable to the area around our place.

２週間後、検査結果を聞きに行く日は、爽やかな『五月晴れの京都』だった。鴨川沿いの定位置で一服していると、我が家周辺とは比較にならない環境の良さをいつも実感する。

My doctor stopped scrolling through the images.

"There's a shadow between your stomach and lung."

––I don't have a stomach.

主治医が、画像をスクロールしていた手を止めた。

「胃と肺の間に影がありますね」

—私、胃はないんですけど。

I was about to sarcastically say that I had been sick after meals for the rest of my life because of his easy-going advice, but my wife sensed it and immediately called it a "gastric tube," and he rephrased it.

アンタの気楽な助言のせいで一生食後に気分が悪くなるハメになった、と皮肉を込めて言おうとしたら、察知したワイフが、すかさず、「胃管」と言い、主治医が言い直した。

He said that he didn't think it was a bad thing, but I was advised to have a re-examination in half a year later, and I agreed. On the night of the examination, after I felt better, I searched for the model number of the Cannon CT scanner that I had memorized and found that it was the high-precision model even though it was not the cutting-edge 3D device. So I interpreted it as something that could not be detected by the Toshiba device until now.

悪いものには思えないが、半年後に再検査をすることを勧められ、承諾した。検査した夜、気分がよくなってから、暗記していたCannonのCTスキャナの型番を検索したら、最新鋭の３D装置ではないことがわかって残念だったが、スペックを読むと、やはり高精度だった。これまで東芝では検知できなかったものが映ったと解釈した。

Taking a break under the Sanjo Ohashi Bridge while watching the heron.

三条大橋の下で鷺の様子を眺めながら一服。

Walking along the Kamogawa River.

鴨川沿いの小道を歩く。

Taking a peek at the humble temple.

慎ましやかなお寺をのぞいてみる。

Kyogoku-dori was not as busy as it used to be, but it also seemed that people were coming back. While we were walking around, we noticed that the second largest sushi chain restaurant in Japan had opened. The couple who has grown to love sushi as they get older entered. It was full, but there were only a few people in the large waiting room. This couple hates waiting, but a few are acceptable. I started with the most expensive abalone ($4!).

京極通りも以前ほどではないが、賑わってきたなと歩いていたら、国内第二位の寿司チェーンが新規開店している。老いるごとに寿司好きになってきた夫婦が入店すると、満室だが、広い待合室には数人程度だ。待つことが大嫌いな夫婦だが、数人は許容範囲である。いちばん値段の高い鮑（$4!）から食す。

Good....... I've never been dumped by sushi, and even though I still wanted to eat, I just had a bad experience the other day, so I put up with it when the duodenum was 80% occupied. I was envious of my wife who didn't have to worry about food.

うまい……。寿司ではダンピングになったことがなく、食べたいネタがまだあっても、先日痛い目にあったばかりなので、十二指腸が80%占拠されたところで我慢した。食の心配がないワイフが、このときばかりは羨ましくなった。

Dinner that day was a beef sandwich and a hot dog from the usual bakery.

その日の夕食は、いつものベーカリーで購入したビーフサンドイッチとホットドッグ。

For dessert, we enjoyed matcha bracken-starch dumplings purchased at a famous store that I had passed by before.

デザートは、これまで素通りしていた有名店で購入した、抹茶のわらび餅を楽しんだ。

There are two types of dumping: immediately after a meal and several hours later. Several hours later one is overwhelmingly painful. I was sweating all over my body and it didn’t stop. I couldn't even walk. The worst one ever was that it lasted for hours.

ダンピングは、食事の直後と数時間後と２種類あって、数時間後のものが圧倒的につらい。全身から汗が噴き出してとまらなくなり、ふらついて歩くこともできない。今までで最悪だったのは、それが数時間も続いたことだ。

I'm tired of feeling sick after every meal. Chewing what you put in your mouth until it looks like baby food. When they flow down from the gastric tube to the duodenum, digestive juices such as bile and pancreatic juice are secreted at once, and the blood sugar level drops. At the same time, blood pressure drops. Then I feel sick and get sleepy, and I usually sleep. It's better than staying awake in pain.

食事のたびに気分が悪くなるのはうんざりだ。口に入れたものは離乳食のようになるまで咀嚼する。それらが胃管から十二指腸へ流れ落ちると、胆汁や膵液などの消化液が一気に分泌され、血糖値が下降する。同時に血圧も下降し、気分が悪くなり、睡魔が襲ってきて、大抵は眠る。苦しいまま起きているよりはましだ。

On the other hand, as we get older, dinner has become the biggest event of the day. My role is to create foods that are immune-focused, high-protein, nutritious, and above all, delicious. When I talk to my wife during a meal, she closes her eyes and concentrates, saying, "I'm enjoying it, so be quiet." You can't taste the deliciousness of your own creations like hers. To overcome that, I came up with the idea of not tasting the food while cooking.

一方で、むしろ老いて、夕食は一日における最大のイベントになっている。免疫力重視で、高タンパク、栄養があり、そしてなによりも美味しいものをつくるのは、私の役割だ。食事中に話しかけると、「味わっているから静かに」と目を閉じて集中するワイフに嗜められる。自分の作ったものは、彼女のように美味しさを味わうことはできない。それを打破するために思いついたのは、調理中に味見をしないことだ。

I don't even measure it, so I rely on my intuition for the seasoning. Of course, errors can occur, but the tip is to make it light. Thanks to that, I can eat while saying “delicious” together with her. However, the duodenum soon begins to swell. And when we start cleaning up, I always say that it's painful.

計量もしないから味付けはすべて自分の勘に頼る。当然、エラーは起こるが、薄味になるように作るのがコツ。おかげでワイフといっしょに「うまい」を連発しながら食することができる。が、すぐに十二指腸が張ってくる。そして、ふたりで片付け始めるときには、いつも苦しいと言い出すのだ。

Other than originating at the DNA level, suffering from cancer depends on lifestyle. In other words, it is self-responsibility. Cancer cells are born every day in the human body, but a healthy body with strong immunity will not be affected.

DNAレベルでの起因以外、罹患するのは生活習慣に依る。つまり自己責任である。人体には毎日癌細胞が生まれるが、免疫力がある健康体なら冒されることはない。

Eat fermented foods daily. Use lots of garlic and ginger. Eat a heaping salad. Broccoli and maitake mushrooms are the ingredients to take preferentially. Nutrients are condensed in vegetables and fruits behind the skin. Do not parboil. Set aside the chopped onions before cooking. Saran wrap releases carcinogens in microwave ovens. My knowledge of health care has increased dramatically since then.

発酵食品を毎日食べる。にんにくとしょうがを多用する。山盛りのサラダを食べる。ブロッコリーと舞茸は優先的に摂取する食材。野菜や果物に栄養が凝縮しているのは皮の裏。下茹ではしない。刻んだ玉ねぎは調理前に放置しておく。サランラップは電子レンジで発癌成分を発生させる。健康医学に関する知識は格段に増えた。　

"If I die, I won't be able to eat delicious food. That's the saddest thing."

Wife's words. These days, I am grateful for the happiness of eating delicious food every night.

「死んだら美味しいものが食べれなくなる。それが一番悲しい。」

ワイフの言葉だ。毎晩、美味しいものを食べている幸せに感謝する今日この頃である。

Postscript:

Thanks to my wife, I have become accustomed to soaking in the bathtub every night since I got a cancer. From the speaker in the bathroom, I can enjoy jazz music that my wife who comes out earlier selects for me. One night in September, while I was listening to Chet Baker and sorting through my iPhone browser bookmarks, I found a title that hadn't been opened for a long time.

後記。

罹患以後、毎晩、湯舟につかるのは、ワイフのおかげで習慣になった。バスルームに置いてあるスピーカーからは、先に出たワイフが私のために選曲したジャズがかかる。九月のある夜、チェット・ベイカーを聴きながらスマホのブラウザのブックマークを整理していると、長い間、開いていないタイトルがあった。

When I first started blogging, I found his page and we had many things in common, such as age, physique, and level of esophageal cancer, and we were communicating by writing on each other's blogs. His post-surgery progress was worse than mine. Once he fell and broke a bone while dumping, but he recovered. And for the past few years he had been writing nothing but Pokémon GO while I had been writing topics also unrelated to cancer. We became estranged, but I tapped the link for the first time in a while.

ブログを始めた当初、年齢、体格、食道癌のレベルなど、共通点が多く、互いのブログに書き込んで交流していた人のものだ。術後の経過は私よりも悪く、ダンピング中に転倒して骨折したりしていたものの、持ち直し、ここ数年は歩くために始めたポケモンGOのことばかりになり、私も癌に無関係なことを書くようになり、疎遠になっていたが、久々にリンクをタップした。

He had passed away, and his wife wrote a note of gratitude. I remembered his last comment. It was for my complaints about dumping.

彼は亡くなっていて、奥様が感謝の想いを書き込んでいた。最後に交わした彼のコメントを想い出した。ダンピングを愚痴る私に向けたものだ。

“We are both remodeled humans.”

「お互い、改造人間ですから」

Rest in peace.

安らかにおやすみください。

ーーー