May 6th And so the final week begins. We thought the doctors were a little late on their rounds this morning, but that could have been just us. We didn’t check the time and they probably had a post-holiday meeting first. As planned, we asked a lot of questions and got a lot of answers. To see them you will have to click on the link later in this post.
After that we had another lazy morning until it was treatment time. It was then time to start the video mentioned above, here is a screen shot.
Later on, it was time to go out for dinner, passing a non-edible pig on the way.
What with the vagaries of Huan’s stomach yesterday and my ongoing rear end problems I asked Huan to choose a place to suit her.
And this is what we had; the cold plate is mine. Under normal circumstances Huan’s would have been fine for me too, but I did not want to risk it today.
May 7th Today started like yesterday, almost, except that it wasn’t me speaking on a video but the nurse extracting my red stuff for more testing. I just lay there with my eyes closed; I really do not like needles at all! There is no screenshot of the baby.
Today’s plan was again the path that must go somewhere. First though we had to go and check on Donald. I had a couple of text messages that seemed to be from the traffic police and I was more than a little worried. It turned out that the trench digging people had phoned the police because the numbers on our little contact block in the windscreen have all disappeared. All we had to do was move forward a little to allow them clearance.
Next was Huan’s final ticket purchase for
this trip to
And then we found the path we wanted to explore, very easily today.
What did we see down there? Bugs, birds and a lizard.
The first stretch brought us out by the shopping mall that we frequently use. I thought I should have a little chat with the swans. Talk about an ugly duckling eh?
The river then joined with the one that passes the hospital and disappeared via the villas that we just saw the other day. We could not follow it to where they joined.
We passed by some lovely apartments in a very well kept complex. Huan stopped for a longer chat, turns out they were exchanging WeChat details with a view to selling our Sanya apartment. I’m sure money will be lost!
Another couple of people were found outside a multi-use property.
When wandering about Chinese cities you can always find a market. For a change though we did not explore this one. Maybe we should have, it looks good.
Who is this little fellow? I had no idea
so I did the usual and Googled the image. “A five-year-old boy in kindergarten
and a member of Kasukabe Defence Force. He is Hiroshi and Misae's son and
Himawari's brother and is nicknamed "Shin-chan". According to a
British journalist in
Back at the hospital greasy spoon nothing took my fancy at all so I just had a cold bottle of Wahaha. Huan had the lunch that every Chinese student can cook, from a very young age!
From one food picture to another, this time a different greasy spoon to lunch time but still in the same place. Huan’s is the top one, she it all bar a little rice. Mine is the bottom one, I left the shredded potato and half a fish, it was hiding under the egg. I also left half my rice but I did eat all the other fish. Sometimes I just want a burger and chips but with Huan being there for me for nearly two months now, I prefer to keep Mum.
May 8th Today was the day that we had been looking forward to, Huan far more than me, I think. The thirty third and final treatment would be after lunch. First though we had our morning visit from the doctors when Huan, unbeknownst to me, asked about my three monthly female hormone injection. That meant we had to stay in and wait. Here I am waiting outside, slightly out of sequence as I made this video after the next one.
This was the next one. As usual I am blocking both my ears and my eyes, the fear never goes away. This was to be another needle in the belly type and those needles look incredibly wide in diameter. You can almost see the hole! The nurse at my arm is saying “no problem”! Huan was of course recording everything.
After lunch, when it was time for the final spell in the machine, we made another little video to add to this week’s. Here I am on my way to freedom.
Later on, we went out for our last dinner
in
Here is the place we chose and the dishes too.
Back at the hospital we took our suitcase up from the car and started our packing. I also had to make sure the laptop and the external HDD both had the same info on them before we go back to our ‘real home’ tomorrow.
May 9th Most of our packing had been done last night so all we had to this morning was have breakfast and ‘check out’ of our hospital/hotel. For me, I revelled in a nice shower where I didn’t have to worry about erasing any of the blue lines that the radiotherapy required. Obviously there are no photos of me in the shower; even Huan draws the line at some things. Instead here is our breakfast for today, yes even I had some, the fried noodles are mine.
Once our two doctors had been, and after Huan had asked more questions, and we had shared our fond farewells, it was time to pay the bill. First we had to wait for our deposit receipts to be printed out so I got on with my daily Chinese lessons. I wish they were doing me more good! Here am I having paid the balance of the bill, this print out refers to less than ten percent of the total. That, just in case you are interested, was almost ¥58,000.00. Remember, it is my fault I have no health insurance, don’t make the same mistakes as me.
Will this treatment have helped me? Well I will have to wait a good three months before I find out. My PSA is still high but better than it was. The three monthly female hormone needle in the belly, along with the daily female hormone tablets should bring it back to more normal levels. To check the bone I will have to have another scan; that has to wait until my body is stronger. Even the nurses told Huan on the way out that rest is important now!
Soon we were in the car and on the way. We stopped twice on the way home, once for lunch and once just for a short break. This was lunch.
Arriving back in Wuzhishan I must say that I was very disappointed that the streets were not lined with people to welcome us home! Even the weather failed us!
Ah well, we did enjoy cheese and onion sandwiches at home. My job then was to transfer everything from the external HDD to the desktop, trying not to make a mess of it at the same time. Using my lovely big twenty seven inch monitor again after using a laptop for the last two months is absolutely superb. Once upon a time, when I first came to china, Dell made big laptops, I wish they would do it again! Finally, for today, I had to finish the video for this stage. You can find it here - https://youtu.be/c3ZPv5C7FvY
May 10th I forgot to tell you something important about last Thursday evening. It may not seem important to you of course but once the radiotherapy was all over it was time to put my jewellery back on. My finger and neck had felt quite bare for nearly two months, now I am officially a married man again and I have my crucifix back where it belongs too.
Today was more of life getting back to normal. Being back in Wuzhishan and being a Saturday it was time for our usual market walk. Before we even left our place Huan’s finger was pointing!
There have been some changes while we were away. We will take special walks for most of them and tell you about next week. Today just one or two make the headlines. Outside our apartments the landscaping of the roadside has been completed.
Nearing the town electric chargers have appeared. People will be able to park and visit our Little Island while charging their cars at the same time. I particularly liked the instructions.
It was nice to walk our streets again, not much has changed there.
The market had grown and stretched al the way down to the second bridge. Tea drinkers, card and mah-jong players were still out in force too.
There have been changes in the river, more next week.
Today we were actually buying stuff!
This was another stop, the whole family joining in.
More wonderful scenery for you to enjoy, although probably not as much as we did.
And here are two different birds in two different places. When I first saw the photos I wasn’t so sure but the metadata doesn’t tell lies!
As for this one, well even you can see it is different to the previous two.
I could have walked home but as I was fully laden again I accepted Huan’s bus offer. Don’t ask me what I was thinking!
Back home I managed to get one last bird for you, hope this one is good enough.
After lunch naps were needed, must be the rarefied air of the mountains. All that was left when we woke up was for me to prepare dinner. I don’t know, in hospital for nearly two months and still have to prepare dinner for two. At least Huan has promised not to send me up ladders to paint walls and ceilings for the foreseeable future.
May 11th Welcome home! We woke up today
to typical English weather, miserable. I guess that made it easier to follow
the hospital’s instructions and take things easy. It did give me time to scan
all the paperwork from
Later on, when the weather had improved a little, still no sun but at least no rain, we had a short town walk. Roads have been resurfaced in some parts while we were away.
This was my view while Huan was checking the Taobao bank balance.
And here she is, happy that we can still buy things online.
I dragged her off to Baijiahui after that, for a little shopping. Tomorrow is our normal shopping day but I thought we would buy the snacks today along with some toothpaste. It is nice to back in Wuzhishan; at least crossing the road here is much easier.
Shopping finished and on the way out we spotted a new restaurant in the centre. We will try it, just not quite yet. Peering through the window there was one sign that intrigued me. Have you noticed it? Fish Disco! I wonder what that is when it’s at home.
Finally, someone else also taking life slowly.
May 12th Another
Monday comes around and we are not in
Inside, Huan had to buy a fish, only one this week though. I suggested that we make sure we eat all the stuff in the freezer now before it goes off. We have been away two months so most of the stuff in there must be well over three months old. Anyway, the sales staff said that they were too busy to clean the fish so Huan did it herself.
I only took a couple of photos of Her Ladyship but she had to get revenge and as usual took far too many of me packing the bags.
After lunch naps were needed, maybe that will be the norm for some time to come. Huan cooked dinner; I asked her if she could remember how! Dangerous ground methinks. Here is my plate before I removed a little rice and added some garlic vinegar.
After dinner I almost forgot that it was Monday and therefore upload day. That could have been a problem, especially as Huan fancied a walk. Luckily the rain came back and so did my memory. As for next week, the forecast is rain everyday, mostly in the afternoons, so we may manage to get out in the mornings and snap a few pics. If not, we will just dutifully follow the doctor’s orders and rest, rest and then rest again! Bye for now.
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