Recovery

Hello everyone,

My apologies for this delay in update, our hospital internet cut out early yesterday morning and still isn't back yet. I had to wait till my dad checked into his hotel today to squeak in some online time.

Wow, it has been a slow release towards relief the past two days but I'm very happy to report that Momma Choi is now out of ICU and recovering steadily in her own room with her own nurse. As opposed to yesterday when she was hooked up to lots of machines and had about 20 tubes sticking out of her, she is now machine-less and only has 2 or 3 tubes attached! :). Also, her new kidney is making a respectable amount of urine and getting toxins out of her body at a pace the doctors are happy with.

Momma Choi's surgery ended around 5am yesterday. She woke up around 10am but we weren't allowed to see her till 4pm when they moved her down from ICU into our new room. When we first saw her she was in pretty bad shape. Her new kidney wasn't working very well (i.e. not getting toxins out her body well) and the doctors were a little concerned. She also was in a lot of pain and was vomiting up this awful green stuff. It was hard to feel like we were anywhere in the clear seeing her in that state that so everyone was still feeling on edge even after a successful surgery. It wasn't until around 8pm last night after she woke up from a her nap that she started to feel a little like herself again and one by one we started to relax a little. She was in much less pain and had stopped vomiting. Also, we were very happy to find that her new kidney was now making more than 300 ml of urine per hour! I think that's a lot.

She is now recovering steadily and almost painlessly in our new room with our new nurse who is amazing. We were told by our hospital that we had to hire an outside 24 hour care nurse as the nurse staff here is booked so our very own Choi family nurse arrived yesterday to monitor her toxins, blood pressure and help her wash up in the morning, etc. Even though she doesn't speak any English or Korean, her niceness comes across so vividly, our family is kinda in love with her and wishes she can come live with us forever.

Dad arrived today and we were very happy to see him. He offered to switch off hospital duty with me today so I am staying in a hotel room tonight. As soon as I got here I took a hot shower and jumped into bed for the deepest 3 hour nap of my life. I am now feeling like a person again with the unshowered, stressed, Chinese-zombie look I was quietly cultivating finally starting to melt away.

I had a #10 from McDonalds for lunch and my dad is bringing me some hot wings from KFC tonight for dinner. Life is good. Mom is doing better. Clean white bathrobes in hotel rooms is so good. Time for more sleep.

Thanks to everyone for your emails, thoughts, messages and prayers.

Love,

Minna

Surgery

It's 2:20am and I just got back to our room after signing anesthesia release papers written completely in Chinese. Mom just started surgery and I will be up for another 3 hours or so waiting to hear how it goes.

The whole day was a whirlwind. Yesterday a rumor started amongst the Korean patients at our hospital that inspectors from the Olympics Board would be coming to our hospital today and that we were under orders not to leave our rooms or speak Korean in the halls in case the inspectors should take note. This was unbelievably scary to me and so a long and emotional conversation between my mom and I ensued. I told her I felt very uncomfortable with our situation here and I really wanted to pursue other options. We talked for a long time about how each "option" that was out there really wasn't a feasible one. We slept on it.

This morning, to avoid the inspectors altogether I suggested we leave the hospital and go to the mall downtown for lunch. As of this morning, my mom was still 3rd (she got pushed back one) on a list of only type B kidney patients. Considering there are only 3 or 4 days till the Olympics hold, the Choi family decided this morning that we were definitely going home empty handed this time around. We told our interpreter over lunch that we will be going home on June 29th and my dad said that he expected me to leave for SF as planned on July 1st.

Then around 4pm, while still at the mall, we got a call from the hospital telling us to rush my mom back to the hospital as soon as possible as two kidneys for Type-B patients had become available and she needed to sign papers and pay for the operation as soon as possible. 5pm is bad traffic time in downtown Tianjin so the ride back to the hospital was unbelievably long and incredibly anxiety-ridden. When we arrived, we rushed to reception, paid for the surgery, signed a lot of papers, and my mom began a series of tests and prep. Then we were told to wait for 6 hours until the compatibility tests began at midnight. They were prepping three patients for two kidneys so that they could find the best possible match.

At midnight we received word that the severe thunderstorm that had started around 7 had delayed the arrival of the organs and that surgery would not start until around 3am, if it happened at all.

At around 1:30 a nurse came and told us that my mom would be going upstairs for surgery in just a few minutes and that the other candidates would not be going ahead tonight, one for lack of tissue matching and the other for an unknown cancellation. She was quickly whisked away on a stretcher and we piled in the elevator together. Before I could even say good luck, I was taken off at the 12th floor and taken to a tiny conference room to sign off on the anesthesia application, which was written completely in Chinese. Luckily we had our interpreter with us and he explained that it was normal procedure. By the time we could get back up to the 13th floor where the surgery is happening, all the doors were locked and we were told we weren't allowed in.

So now I'm back in room 505. Dad's visa into China can't be approved until Saturday so he will come then and stay as long as necessary. So for now, it's just me and it's a little scary to be honest. Our interpreter is waiting it out on the 1st floor.

It's 3am and there's about another two hours left. Please keep her in your prayers and thoughts.

Love,

Minna

Dueling Orbs Birthday: #2 Top Fav Thing To Do in Room 505 at Tianjin Medical Center

Today is Momma and Papa Choi's collective birthday! However, since dad had to leave early this morning back to Korea, we had a mini celebration late last night in Room 505.

According to both of their US passports, their birthday is June 24th (they were born two years apart though in 1955 and 1953, dad and mom respectively)...but it's not technically true. Both my parents were born in South Korea a few years after the Korean War but my mom was born in Seoul to more cosmopolitan, westernized parents who saw solar calendars as the wave of the future. So on the day she was born, they decided to name that date according to the Solar Calendar, which was June 24th. My dad, however, was born and raised in the countryside on a farm so on the day he was born, his parents decided to name that date according to the Lunar Calendar, (which most of the country still did), which was June 24th (according to the Lunar Calendar). The lunar calendar I'm told runs later than the solar one, so June 24th on the lunar calendar translates to around July 25th on the solar calendar. So they were not born on the same day, they just have the same birthday on two different calendars.

This was all very confusing to immigration so when they applied for their permanent residency in the US in the 70s, my dad had to pick a birthday, and since he grew up his whole life thinking of June 24th as his birthday even though it was on a different calendar, he just decided to stick with that. So my whole life, we've celebrated their birthdays together, even though my dad's is kind of a revised birthday.

So, Happy Birthday to 2/3rds of the Choi family today! Mom is now 55 and dad is 53. Opposite ages of their respective birth years. That's gotta mean something right? :) We'll take a good dose of luck for their collective presents please, thanks!

Bambi Breakfast: #3 Top Fav Thing To Do in Room 505 at Tianjin Medical Center

Apparently the Chinese believe deer meat is good for your skin, so I heated up some leftovers in the microwave this morning to have with my morning coffee. Momma Choi thought this also a good idea since I'm not much of an exfoliator and how am I ever going to get married if I don't have clear skin? :) We then both decided this is an excellent solution to a long standing problem...I can feel it working already.

Today is a particularly badly polluted day according to our nurses. With all the constant talk about how bad the pollution in China is, I guess I kinda tuned it out, even since arriving here. I think my brain kept mistaking the air as "SF-foggy" and not "China-toxic". But looking out our window today, I can barely make out the outline of large building just down the street through the gray haze. Usually we would stay indoors on a day like today but Dad is arriving in a few hours so we will brave the smoky outdoors together.

I'm excited to see him again. He is coming from Korea today stocked with a second supply of clothes, books, mags, meds and Korean food to go along with our other camping-ish food we bought last night: Spam, wasabi peas, dried seaweed, water, cokes, and four cans of "hite" beer. Beer, coffee and coke have been my main liquids on this trip to make up for the water in restaurants not being recommended for westerners.

Not much has changed on the kidney waiting front since our next door neighbor had his operation. His wife is relieved and he has been up and about. We can hear them laughing and having a pretty good time over there through the very thin walls here. I did receive confirmation that my mom is for the moment a "move-able" #2 on the list for blood type-B kidney patients awaiting donors. She can move up or down on that list however depending on tissue-type matching and various other factors. We have until June 29th before the Olympics hold begins so there are still 8 or so days left. I will keep the blog posted.

Well, time to get ready for the airport. Thanks to everyone for your comments, they are fun to read while I'm here.

Love,

Minna

The Tower of 'Doo..Man Doo...

Hello. My mom, our chinese/korean interpreter and I just got home from a special dinner in downtown Tianjin tonight. We went to eat dumplings at the locally famous Gobuli. Dumplings are Momma Choi's favorite Chinese food so we all took her out for some freshly steamed deliciousness. Each Gobuli dumpling is handmade and they look like little pillows. They are so soft and perfectly ruffled.

Now we are back on our respective little blue beds with the remote control thingy. My mom's reading a Korean translation the book "The Art of the Long View" (she loves business books) and I just finished storing and organizing our pantry with all the kinda fun dry goods we purchased yesterday at E-Mart (the Asian K-mart). It feels a little wrong to romanticize stocking up our hospital room with instant coffee, sugar and water for the long haul but reading one too many "Little House on the ___" books in elementary school will do that to you I guess. Tomorrow maybe I'll make my very own maple syrup candy over snow.

Oh, Momma Choi is sleeping now, I must turn out the lights. I will turn them off in 5 minutes.

The patient next door, an older Korean man, received a kidney last night. This moves us up one more notch on the waiting list. I thought I heard our interpreter say that mom is 2nd on the list now but my Korean is not very good so I could have misheard. I will ask tomorrow to make sure.

5 minutes is passed, time for bed. Thanks to everyone for your well wishes and encouraging words. Looking forward to delivering some good news soon...

-Minna

China

Hello person reading this blog !

We've been in the China for three nights now and my dad left for Korea today to get a larger supply of clothes, medicine, and books for my mom. Mom and I have stayed behind per the suggestion of the head surgeon at the hospital.

The latest news from China is that Chois has decided to extend our 4 day stay by a couple weeks as my mom has been put on a temporary 2 week waitlist for a kidney. The reason the waitlist is so short isn't because she's guaranteed a kidney in 2 weeks but because our hospital is apparently stopping all organ transplants in 2 weeks in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. So they have put everyone here on a two week hold just in case an organ should become available and if not, we will have to return after the Olympics hoopla is over..that would be in October or so. If my mom receives a kidney in the next week or so, they will go ahead with the surgery. If not, we will start dialysis until October and try again then. My parents and I had a long, emotional discussion about it last night and they feel this is their only option.

Our hospital is in the city of Tianjin and performs the most organ transplants of any hospital in Asia. It is huge. Everything in China seems huge for some reason. Tianjin is about a two hour drive from Beijing so the hospital here is also under massive construction and renovation to a back up hospital for the Olympics rush. Our room is pretty quiet but the lobby looks something like an asbestos fair. Dust and powder everywhere, my dad told me that the name of the construction company in charge of the renovations translates to something like "In A Rush Construction"...hmm...comforting...

Dad will be returning to China on Saturday with our clean supply of clothes, etc. In the meantime, we do have a couple interpreters with us to help communication between the doctors and us. One of the nurses speaks Korean so she has been super helpful. She just came in now! Hi! She told us to always keep our money and cell phone on our bodies and never leave our room unlocked. eee...okay. Now's she's gone. Bye!

Our room has two twin beds so it's actually pretty comfortable as my mom and I each have our own bed. We have our own toilet too, the normal kind, not the squat-over-the-urinal-in-the-floor kind that's more popular here. Ah...the good life :).

I had three cokes today which tasted so good. Per the advice of my roommate Gavi's friend Ben who told us to drink diet coke if you want to be obese and diabetic when you're old, I've started drinking regular coke again. It's not so bad!

I miss the US and Korea but there is something to be said about roughing out a tough situation with family that I don't think I will ever forget. Signing off for now,

love,

Minna

I heart Lee Myung Bak

The window to our 15th floor apt in Guang Hwa Moon is open and we can hear more protests from outside. The streets in our hood are lined with policemen and soldiers in training, most of them just sitting around waiting for something to happen...and I just got home from an 8pm showing of the Sex and The City movie! Awesome! Somehow this situation seems quintessentially Korea: soldiers, protests that have nothing concrete to do with the problem at hand, and designer clothing...!

Yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of two Korean girls' tragic but accidental deaths by a US army tank in South Korea and thus triggered more anti-US beef and general anti-US and anti-new US-friendly prez demonstrations in Guang Hwa Moon. Yesterday also was the day momma choi threw down in a cab ride on the way to the duty free shops about the ridiculousness of the protests and the tendency of Korean leftist anti-US young people to get carried away with emotional and dramatic shows of nationalism simply for the sake of getting their angst out. It was odd but also nice to see her all riled up and energetic (she's usually really tired).

It's strange to be around all this commotion and not have any say because in the end, I don't feel like I have any right to Korea as my country. I've never lived here aside from short trips to visit my folks since they moved back last year, so as tempting as it is to pass judgment on the young people who over-romanticize nationalism and volatile anti-US sentiment (one farmer martyred himself by burning himself alive in protest of importing of US beef!), it's really not my place, and that is frustrating. Somehow I have a feeling that a "kyopo" (a korean word for non-korea born korean) marching through throngs of candle wielding aggros telling them to get a grip would not bode so well...don't know what it is...

The sympathies of these protests from the older generation seem pretty non-existent. We had a nice lunch with my dad's mom today and she also started getting all riled up about these "good for nothing punks that have nothing better to do than shut the city down every night protesting beef". Wow, grandma, what do you really think?

Back to the mom front, we leave for China tomorrow morning where we will visit a few hospitals and try to find a donor. Mom's visa finally went through yesterday afternoon with one day to spare. Very in keeping with the Choi custom, hustle hustle.

It was nice to get away for 2 hours and just put everything on pause and watch a flighty movie. The foreign cinema house is 5 blocks from our apt, I guess SATC: the movie counts as a foreign film out here. But to just be able to veg for a sec and not think or worry...good. As for now, the chanting is still going on outside, it's midnight, it will probably end around 2 or 3am.

Signing off for now :), I heart you Lee Myung Bak,

Minna

It's Noisy

Hello people. Welcome to my first personal blog. I thought I'd start this as things in life are really hectic and this seems like a nice and organized way to get various news out and about. Awesome!

So, I just arrived in Korea last night and was greeted by 100,000 protestors! Woo! (see pic above)

My parents recently moved to a district of Seoul called Guang Huan Moon. It's one of the arts/culture districts of Seoul (lots of museums and theaters) but also is home to the Korean version of the White House. So last night, a humogonous crowd of angry Seoul-ites took to the streets literally outside our apartment building chanting in protest to President Lee and his recent decisions regarding Korea's import of U.S. beef. (among other issues). It was a very noisy night but after a 15 hour flight with a stop in LA and winding through protest traffic for 2 hours on the way home...I slept right through it :).

Things on the mom front are going ahead as planned. For those of you I haven't told yet, my mom's kidneys have begun failing again so have actively begun looking for transplant options. Last week she was put on a waiting list in Korea and it's a scramble this week to get Chinese visas for the family so we can put her on a waiting list in China as well. On Sunday we travel across the Yellow Sea to some Chinese city (i can't remember the name) that specializes in organ transplanting. We'll be there for five days to check out their facilities and then fly back to spend one more week in Korea. I come back to SF on July 1st at which point I will promptly walk to Pancho Villa for a shrimp taco. We are hopeful that momma choi will find an organ donor within the next few months.

A bunch of very exciting projects are on the move since school ended a month ago. I am starting a record label with my musical hero, Carla Kihlstedt. She has been an amazing mentor ever since I got to SF last year and I'm still pinching myself that she's involved me in as many projects as she has. We've romped around Chicago, Boston and NY so far this year and hopefully the label and licensing companies will bring new rompage oppos in more awesome cities to come! Carla you are amazing!

I'm also starting a new orchestra called The Magik*Magik Orchestra together with composer Luciano Chessa (one of my favorite composers) and Terra Reneau, who books for Cafe Du Nord. It's been a huge project that's taken lots of brainstorming and collaborative power but I have high hopes for it and will keep everyone posted on how it turns out! Terra, Luciano and I are also trying to plan the first SF Wordless Music Series concert which will hopefully feature the west coast premiere of Jonny Greenwood's "Popcorn Superhet Receiver". If it happens, you must come as it will be SO awesome.

I think I will end this first blog with some funny things I've done in Korea since I got here. Number one, we don't have a dryer in this house, like for laundry. Most apts in our building don't because of the high cost of electricity. So today, my mom taught me how to take wrinkles out of shirts the old fashion way. We took the clothes out of the washer, folded them into little squares, then neatly packed them inside some towels and it was my job to step/jump on them to flatten out the wrinkles before we hung them to dry. It felt a bit surreal considering that everything else about the apt feels like we live in a spaceship from the future. No keys (only magnetized cards for entry), built-in flat screen tvs next to the kitchen sink, the tiniest Samsung desktop computers I've ever seen. Number two weirdo Korea thing, my mom took out a large sum of money in cash from the bank today to deposit into my dad's bank account. Do they not have checks or online banking here?? Anyway, the bank teller gave her the cash in a paper bag. No envelope, no boxes, no nothing. Even crazier, the bag was white with little green bank logos all over it..I felt like we were in a cartoon and just robbed a bank, they might as well had a huge dollar sign on the bag to make it just that much easier to get jumped on the way home. Thank you Hana Bank!

I will be keeping this blog updated with all the news of my summer and beyond so check back if you're bored at the office sometime!

Love,

Minna