Today was kind of an uneventful day. Following my mom's instructions, most of the day we spent in the hotel room resting, watching the news, napping and reading.
Dad took one instead of two of his Magnesium Oxide pills today, which helps counteract the constipation side-effects of the pain killers. He said that he went poo five times yesterday and he went twice this morning, so he cut out one of the pills.
We went out for our usual walk to the Zhongxiao Donghua MRT stop. Around there, we had soybean milk and xiaolongbao. It felt really good to eat this, as Taipei is getting colder.
We walked back and both fell asleep. When we woke up, it was almost dinner time. At this time, I feel like we're running out of places to eat. Or just that we're sick of eating out.
We ended up going to the Sogo Department Store Food Court. On the way there, my dad said he saw an evening news program which reported an apartment for NT$18,000 a month. I asked him where the apartment was and he got mad, saying, "How do I know?" I said the news program should have said where. Then he got more upset.
At the food court, we walked around, and tried to look for something to eat. My dad ordered some seafood rice au gratin at this stall that sold Italian food. I ordered pork katsu curry with egg omelet. When we got our food, we were both disappointed. My dad's seafood rice au gratin had a thick layer of cheese on it, which he can't eat. My curry didn't taste very good.
At the next table in the food court, a woman started singing old Chinese songs, her slight round face turned pink, and head tilting slightly to the side. My dad, smiling, started staring off, no doubt the music taking him to a familiar place in the past.
She would sing, then talk about the songs, and then start singing another song. It brightened everything up. I asked my dad how old he was when these songs came out. He said he was in his twenties, and added that his former boss, Paul Chien, used to sing these songs.
Then the woman got up and said thanks to the group of people she was sitting with. Just then, we realized that she was sitting with complete strangers because there weren't enough seats in the food court and just began chatting away. We started laughing because it must have been extremely weird having a person join you at your table and then start singing away.
Nevertheless, the woman brightened up our sad dinner. We went back to the hotel in better spirits. Back in the room, we prepared for tomorrow's appointment with the cancer specialist at Tai-Da Hospital, going over how my dad has been feeling over the past week.
Some of the side effects include:
- feeling tired and being zoned out from the pain killers
- sometimes sweating when sleeping
- going poo more than normal
- waking up 3-4 times during the course of a night to go to the bathroom
- swollen feet and ankles (last night)
He's reduced his painkiller medication from 3 times a day to 2, so he's more lucid. He's also not feeling nauseous at all, which is good. For him, he's just glad that his hair isn't falling out. Things seem OK, but I think the challenge now is to keep him from being bored and eating food that isn't good for him.
