"Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

 "Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros is quite possibly my favorite song. It's connected to many fond childhood memories and is one of the songs I love to sing in karaoke, especially with my little sister, Clara. I attempt to sing Alexander and hit his low notes and she sings Jade and her high notes perfectly. Not to mention the beat and lyrics are absolute fire.

My favorite verse is the first verse of the chorus (I know, very cliche). It goes:

"Oh, home, let me come home

Home is whenever I'm with you

La la la la

Take me home

Mama, I'm coming home"

I like that the songwriters use the word "whenever" instead of "wherever". In Taiwan, I had a lot of homes. Well, only 3, but it still felt like a lot because usually we never stay in hotels. Earlier this summer, I also had a lot of homes. Even though we traveled to 23 states and woke up in a different place almost every night, I didn't feel homesick because every day I was surrounded by some of the people (and animals) that I love most. I got to see a lot of close friends and family, as well as spend almost every day with my sisters and parents and crazy (dumb) dog. Even if I missed my friends, they were always just a quick text away.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that home isn't really wherever my house is. Instead, it's whenever I'm surrounded by my people. My friends and family. My village. 

This isn't something that I came up with, by the way. You've probably already heard this before. I'm just mentioning it because I haven't ever really given it much thought before, but now that I've spent more time away from my house in California this summer than I ever have in my life (on my mission trip and at my cousin's house in Alaska, on our cross-country road trip, at my oma and opa's house in Michigan, and now in Taiwan), I've realized that feelings of love shouldn't be dictated by a physical place. After all, God is with us everywhere, not only in church on Sunday. He's with us when we read our Bible, when we spend time with friends and family, and even when we mess up and sin (Matthew 28:20 has been immensely comforting to me these past few days whenever I felt isolated and alone because I was on the opposite side of the world). 

I mentioned "my village" earlier. Similar to my home, my village isn't a physical place, though it would be really cool if it was! Imagine being able to live in a place surrounded by people who are willing to pray for you and whatever you're going through. Who might not even know you personally but I still feel a connection to them because I've heard about them and their overwhelming love. Sounds kind of like heaven... oh wait. ;)

The other day, my grandma texted me and told me that my cousin, Nick, meets with some of his friends from Pepperdine to pray for me. A lot of other people from other friends' Bible studies and prayer groups have been praying for me as well. I've never even met these people, and maybe never will, but I wish I could meet them and thank them. (If I haven't met you before and you're reading this: hi! Nice to meet you (sort of)! And thank you for your prayers. I'm eternally grateful. Seriously. Like those three little aliens that Mr. Potato Head saves in Toy Story. Here's something you should know about me (if you haven't already picked it up): I'm a woman of culture. Specifically Disney/ Pixar culture). 

This was a lot of philosophical stuff. But on to the real reason I chose that song for the title (I was very proud of this blog title, by the way): I'M HOME!

That's right! We're back in California! My dad and I have been looking for a flight home ever since Monday morning because I'd recovered a lot faster than we both expected (thanks, God!) and wanted to spend more time in California before school started rather than in Taiwan. Miraculously, we found a flight that had 2 empty seats (by the bulkhead, so our long Fieldhouse legs could survive the 12-hour flight!) next to each other on Monday night shortly after my post-op appointment. We jumped around for a bit after booking the flight, then proceeded to shower, pack up our bags again, and skip over to the airport.

I wrote my last post at the airport. We were being sneaky and didn't tell anyone that we were coming home except my mom and little sister, aunt and uncle in Alaska, and oma and opa in Michigan that we were coming home. Hehehe.

Thanks to the time change, we left Monday night/early Tuesday morning and got home Monday night. The next day, we decided it would be fun to surprise my grandma and grandpa, so my mom called them and asked if they could come over Tuesday night and watch the Olympics. My dad and I came over as well, then went in a few minutes after my mom and sister did. They were so confused! It was awesome.

Unfortunately, my dad and I had spent enough time in Taiwan that we had somewhat adjusted to their time zone, so we were once again jet-lagged last night. We spent about 2 hours watching the hilarious farming TV show Clarkson's Farm. I don't know why he thought it was a good idea because it's an absolutely hilarious show, but I can't smile or laugh because it hurts (when I "smile", it looks like a cross between the Chris Pratt Parks and Rec meme and Ghostface). So, at 12:00 a.m. this morning, my dad was in stitches laughing and I was trying not to laugh because... stitches.

We finally headed up to bed around 2:00 a.m., and while dad could fall asleep right away, I had to do my daily dance party/deep cleaning of my mouth, nose, and lips. It has over 20 steps, takes about 40 minutes, and involves lots of Phil Wickham, Hillsong Worship, and Jordan St. Cyr songs. Needless to say, I finally fell asleep at around 4 in the morning. Oh well. Small price to pay to see my family again.

Before I end this post, I wanted to tell you some of the things that God has done:

- I have no pain (except in my hip whenever I jump around too much in my dance party or smile too much, which I can't complain about) and I haven't needed to take any of the heavy-duty opioid pain medication since I left the hospital. This is a miracle in and of itself because they both make me super loopy and they taste awful because we have to break them up into powder and drink it in juice because I struggle with swallowing pills

- I've been able to swallow the largest pill of my life (antibiotics), which I've never been able to do before, instead of breaking it up and drinking it

- We got home safely (obviously) from Taiwan and our luggage wasn't lost!

- My sister, Molly, is having a great time at Hume Lake!

Two major prayer requests:

- I've lost over 10 pounds already, so I would really appreciate it if you prayed for a bigger appetite so that I can get more food in my body.

- I'm not sure why, but my concentration is still really bad and I haven't been able to finish my summer homework and school starts in less than 2 weeks. This sounds really stupid writing it down, but I stress out a lot over deadlines and lose a lot of sleep worrying about whether or not I'm going to finish everything before the first day of school, so I'm not able to fully relax until everything is done. So, I would really appreciate prayers for a clear head.  

I think that's it! So happy to be home. 

Out and About!

 Finally, my turn again to do a post! Just kidding... I've been asking my dad to do the posts as I recover. As Dad mentioned, we moved from the hospital to a very fancy Airbnb in a much nicer city than our previous hotel. Nothing smells like oil, which is great! I'm a strong believer in the importance of a change of scenery, so moving out of the hospital was amazing for my healing process. I hate, hate, hate hospitals with a passion: the smells, the sounds, and the feeling of the air just creep me out.

The first few days after surgery are usually the worst. It's really painful to swallow, so I don't want to eat anything most of the time. I'd like to read a book or watch a movie, but the super-strong pain meds (the ones with the opioids in them) wreck my concentration so my brain feels like it's floating three feet above my body. I spend most of my time in a dream-like state: not quite asleep, but definitely not fully coherent or present either. 

However, soon after we got to the new Airbnb, I was able to start reading a book for school (Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro... I definitely recommend it. Not quite sure what it's about yet because I'm only 30% of the way done, but I really like the author's style of writing). I've been so stressed catching up on summer homework because I'm a chronic procrastinator that I haven't had any time to read pleasure books yet (sorry Uncle Ron and Aunt Marge!! I'm really looking forward to reading Fourth Wing soon though). 

My food intake has consisted so far of ice cream, delicious Taiwanese tea, boba, jello, chocolate milk, and blended-up curry. I eat using a squirt bottle sort of sorts that has a really small opening to prevent me from choking on any chunks. Funny story... Sunday morning I was drinking curry for breakfast on the couch while my dad watched YouTube videos on the bed. A piece of food got stuck in the opening, and, being the strong, independent girl who don't need no man that I am, I proceeded to squeeze the bottle with all my might to dislodge the chunk. It worked a little too well and a geyser of curry erupted from the bottle, hit the ceiling 12 feet in the air, and rained down on the surrounding couch, floor, and furniture. I found it hilarious, but my dad (who had to clean it)... not so much.

My dad and I have been going on walks throughout the day around our nearby neighborhood, and although I look like Quasi from the Hunchback of Notre Dame when I stand for too long (it hurts my hip, where they removed a strip of fat, to stand for a while), it's been really fun for the most part. We went to a night market on Saturday night, which sold a lot of food that I unfortunately couldn't eat. We went to Taipei Tower, which used to be the tallest building in the world, yesterday and explored the mall that was next to it. The mall was huge and super pretty!

 

Louis Vuitton cuz we're fancy like that

Father was feeling fabulous.

View of the tower from outside

On the way to the mall, we noticed that there were a lot of people cosplaying anime characters standing outside of a nearby building. Upon further inspection, we realized that there was a major video game, movie, and TV show convention right next to the Taipei Tower. Obviously, we snuck in and had a look. It was incredible.

                                            

We were supposed to go to the zoo on Saturday, but unfortunately, I could barely breathe through my mouth and nose from all the congestion/blood/mucus, so dad decided it wasn't a good idea to go on a super long walk. Bummer, because we missed out on some really cute koalas.

Today was a BIG day. First, we packed up our suitcases to check out of the Airbnb. Next, we took a train to the hospital for a post-op with Dr. Lo and a reunion with our BFF Aggie. Side note: if you're traveling with suitcases, you have to be a master at Tetris because the elevators in Taiwan are extremely small and everyone is trying to not be the loser who has to wait for the next elevator because they're too much of a wimp to shove themselves in there. 

Once we got to the hospital, we ate a quick lunch, then met with Aggie who brought us to our appointment with Dr. Lo. He did a quick look in my mouth, stated the obvious and said that I have to drink more water, and then removed the stitches around my nose and lip, and the tape on my hip and stomach. Then he said everything looked good, gave us his business card, and sent us on our merry way.

                                                    

My very beautiful selfie depicting the first time I had seen my face without any stitches. The brace over my nose (which I have to wear for about a month) is to protect the fat that they inserted into the bridge and give it time to heal. The stint in the nose (which I have to wear for six months for at least four hours a day) is used to train my nostrils to retain a certain shape.

                                                        

We checked into a new, fancy hotel that not only gave free breakfast but complimentary snacks and drinks in the room! It was definitely the nicest hotel my dad and I had ever set foot in. We unpacked and decided to check out the area. We grabbed some boba (obviously) and meandered around for about an hour before grabbing some microwaveable dinner at --you guessed it-- 7/11 before heading back to the hotel. 

                                              

Thus concludes day 12 in Taiwan.

Recovery in Progress

 We have settled into our new home and are slowly getting our energy.  Some of our daily routines of eating and cleaning continue but we have added exercise to help build our strength and reduce mucus.  We are still on our wonderful liquid diet.  Today's lunch was melted ice cream, pureed curry soup, pureed chicken noodle soup brought from home, and Jello from home.  This will be finished by dinner time.  

When looking on Airbnb just before we left for Taiwan, I had one requirement for our post-op place to stay the couch needed to look comfortable.  This is usually where the little princess usually resides for a while until she gets her energy back.  Tessa spends most of her time on the couch reading leisurely, summer school reading, texting, watching movies, napping, and getting her fill of Mark Rober (YouTube).  

Our new place to stay could not have been in a better spot.  We are on the 24th floor overlooking a bustling area in a tiny apartment.  

Our building is the one with the circles.  We are on the 24th floor.

View from the elevators

We do a lot of cleaning, suctioning, ointment applying, and dried blood removing.  This is where Tessa's station is where she does a majority of it with all of her goodies.

In trying to build up our stamina we go for daily walks.  We walk through fancy shops and places that look like where the next Coronavirus may come from.  Very interesting.  Our hope is to do a second walk tonight after we recoup from our morning walk.  The hope is to take the subway tomorrow to the zoo and maybe Taipei Tower.  Our next follow-up appointment is Monday afternoon where some stitches will be taken out.  

 

"Unpacked" (clean version) and Being Discharged

 Well, that was not fun.  

Dr. Lou came in this morning with his two interns and two nurses to remove all of Tessa's bandages, nose guard, and packing to do a final inspection.  I don't know if you are a fast remover of bandages, slow, or just leave it on till it falls off (I personally have a bandaid on my left leg that has been there for over three weeks).  Well, these nurses fall in the first category.  Before you knew it Miss Wide-eyed Tessa did not have any bandages or nose guard on her face.  Knowing that the "forceps" were coming out I started cracking Tessa's toes one by one to be a distraction.  I am not sure if that did anything and 2 loud moans filled the room along with a few tears.  It is done.

Tessa was actively cleaned up by the two nurses as Dr. Lou was talking about precautions we need to take over the next week and months.  Basically, it boiled down to being nice to your parents, and siblings, and no tetherball for a while.  The nose guard is on for 1 month or until she feels it has firmed up.  Drink lots of water and liquid diet for the next two weeks.

She is still VERY swollen on the bridge of her nose, cheeks, and especially just above her upper lip.  Just so you know, the very first time I took this picture she crossed her eyes.  Goofball.

We have one more deep cleaning in 1 hour and then we will be discharged.  Aggie, who is our point person and new BFF, will then take us to our Airbnb and help us get settled in.   

Breakfast was not as big of a hit as we would have liked.  Apparently, chocolate ice cream hurts a little when swallowed.  But we did drink a lot of fluids on our own and she swallowed one pill all by herself.  Tessa got my genes of the inability to swallow pills, so we crush everything.

Sleeping and Nose Packing

It is currently 5:30 AM here in Taiwan.

The evening went better.  There were only two or three nurse visits throughout the night.  Tessa has been sleeping better since yesterday afternoon since implementing the funny airplane neck pillow as our primary pillow.  Throat pain is subsiding but the left hip is still making moving around a wincing experience. 

Yesterday afternoon her face started to swell a little bit. Typically, we ice her face with some really cool pink and blue face masks rotating frequently at home. But since Tessa had her own fat (they refer to it as live cells) injected everywhere in her face they do not want ice on it because they say it will kill the live cells. It does not appear to be causing pain to her but just adds to the list of things she would rather not have. I thought there would be a lot of bruising but we have not seen any yet.

Tessa shared that she is nervous about her nose packing being removed today.  She has packing in each nostril to absorb and slow down blood loss.  Think spongy flip-flop material about 2 inches long.  We will meet with Dr. Lou sometime today to see if we will be discharged today.  He will remove the packing and allow the nose to rest for a few days.  Next Monday we come back to the hospital to have some stitches removed and a nose stint put in which she will have to wear for several hours a day.  As you can imagine, she was not excited when she heard that at our pre-op.  Please pray for Tessa’s anxiousness for this Dr. appt. 

This morning for breakfast will be chocolate ice cream.  At least the morning will start off with something to look forward to.

Update Post Surgery

 Coming out of the fog and into the typhoon.

In the brief time that I have interacted with Dr. Lou, I have noticed that he is quick to listen and slow to speak.  He is a man who resides daily in a field of nothing but weighty and difficult questions but has not grown weary of truly empathizing with the fresh and raw concerns families bring to him.

I was able to talk to Dr. Lou right after the surgery and he said that things went as planned.  I knew going into the surgery he was a little apprehensive about the flap since she had had surgery in that area before.  So of course my first question was how was the tissue in her throat.  He paused and then said that he had to make it a little smaller than he would have liked, due to the scar tissue, but he felt confident that it would take.  He went into more detail about what he did in surgery related to his initial game plan.  

Shortly after that Tessa was wheeled out, more awake than her usual post-ops self, she reached her hand out to hold mine.  I grabbed it and whispered that I loved her, the surgery went as planned, and they did not have to touch the cartilage in her ear.  The surgery is done and this is now phase two of what I have been thinking about and preparing for for a while.  Packing heavy medicine, various stubborn phlegm-removing tools, tubing for suctioning, blenders for food, various eating bottles, syringes, replacement pillowcases, face cleaning supplies, various types of ice packs, and cloths for lots of fluids.  I had no idea what to expect so you prepare for the worst. I have been telling Allison these past few days that I have never thought about food so much in my entire life.  Processing what this picky little eater can and will eat in a foreign country has been consuming.

We were quickly whisked off to her hospital room where we were greeted by 6 no-nonsense nurses who got us situated.  It was kind of weird because this is usually where her mom and I usually step in as caretakers.  My job was now to get out of the way and just chuckle a little bit.  What a blessing.  There were lots of questions and minute-by-minute use of Google translate trying to understand what each one of us was saying.  Once they got her situated and moved out it was time for Tessa to rest.  

The evenings are usually a little rough after surgeries, as it was last night.  Post surgeries we battle with pain, blood, a clean mouth, and most of all phlegm that restricts breathing while napping and sleeping.  As I am writing this next to Tessa I can hear her struggling in her sleep to breathe due to the phlegm. With this surgery, she has three incisions into her gut and hip.  Her hip incision is causing her a lot of pain when she walks to the restroom.  Her throat is also hurting a lot as a result of her intubation tube.  This is what you can specifically pray for now.  

Our next few days will consist of cleaning our mouth and face, suctioning, making adjustments in bed, a face-time with the family in the COMPLETE opposite time zone, drinking small amounts of fluids in syringes,  suctioning, making frequent trips to the restroom, signing, spelling her needs in sign language, getting frustrated with dad's lack of knowledge in fingerspelling, cleaning q-tips in throat, crushing pills and administering medicine through various concoctions every few hours and taking as many cat naps as possible.  

For the next week, the last two paragraphs will be rinse and repeat.  I will try to update on any changes that happen this week.

Sorry, no pictures

Precious Moments

Did your parents collect these when you were growing up?  On a regular, basis new ones would come out and they would run out and purchase them,  come home stick them on a shelf, and then store the box somewhere.  Your parents would explain that some were worth more than others and which ones were rare.  And don't you dare touch one of them either.  Now they sit in my parent's backyard storage shed.

When dating Allison and the first few years of marriage, we would visit with my grandpa and grandma in Michigan.  When you walked into their place there were two wooden gliding rocking chairs right next to each other.  We would sit and talk about various things while they would hold hands while rocking.  My grandpa would say as they were rocking, that they referred to it as their precious moments.  That comment always stuck with me.

As Tessa is sitting in surgery my two other girls and Allison are eating ice cream, watching a movie all cozy next to each other on the couch, staying up way too late,  hoping for an update on how things are progressing over here.  Getting a text from Molly right before she ended up falling asleep to see if there are any updates on her sister longer than expected surgery. Thanks again Allison for letting me be creepy by letting me have a camera in the house so that I do not miss anything at home while we are gone. 

Sitting in a chair next to her bed exhausted while holding Tessa’s hand as she catches short little cat naps here and there.  Getting a firm squeeze every five minutes or so as she anticipates the need to swallow knowing it will be painful.  Helping hold her hair back and rubbing her back as she tries to throw up in the bathroom. This has been a long journey but I cannot imagine being anywhere else right now.  These are the precious moments I like.

Waiting....

Dr. Lou said in pre-op that the surgery should take 4 hours.  We are now going on 5.  No news yet.

Christmas in July. I am waiting for the Christmas tree in the far right box to change to some other unique shape.  While sitting in the waiting room I got this text.  Have you ever felt like you were the last one to figure something out?  

. 

I am finding as I sit here and look at pictures or read texts from friends, family, co-workers, Tessa's classmates I am reminded of how much she is loved.  Reminders are good and we all need them.  Things we know but maybe just need to hear from someone else just to affirm what you already know.  Reminders bring emotions on suddenly the moment you are halfway through the first sentence of a text or a phone call.  I have appreciated the reminders throughout this journey and especially these last few days.   The Christmas tree has changed on the screen!!!!  Got to go see my girl.    

Jet Lag, Speechies, Aggie, and Dr. Lou - Day 4

Jet Lag, Speechies, Aggie, and Dr. Lou - Day 4

They say on the third day it gets ya. Oh boy, did it get us. We thought, being the professional travelers we are, that we were just too good for jet lag. We spoke too soon. We had big plans to go out to the night market Sunday night, but when we went back to our hotel for a little siesta, it quickly turned into a slumber party. Hence, we completely missed the night market and we woke up at around 1-3 in the morning. Fantastic. We laid around for about 6.5 hours, during which we watched some more golf and I took a freezing cold shower because the hot water wasn’t working (somehow my dad, who showered after I did, got tons of it. It’s definitely a conspiracy), before heading up to breakfast (once again toast, coffee, oranges, watermelon, and hard-boiled eggs).

After breakfast, we headed back up to our room to clean and pack up our suitcases for checkout at 11. We dragged our suitcases all the way to the metro, where we took a train to Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking that that’s where we were going… there are about a dozen Chang Gung hospitals in Taiwan. So, you have to be very careful which one you type into the search bar on Google Maps.

Once we got to the new city, we quickly realized that it was much, much nicer than the one we had previously been staying in. The food actually looked and smelled delicious instead of looking and smelling oily. We also finally found a boba shop that sold Thai tea, which dad was stoked about. I don’t think he realized that Thai tea came from Thailand and not Taiwan. When I informed him of this shocking piece of information, he said that both countries should sell it because it’s practically the same name. 

After the delicious boba and walking around a little bit, we hailed an Uber for the second time in our lives and moseyed our way over to the Real Chang Gung Hospital. We only almost died once on the way here. As I’ve mentioned before, Taiwanese people are very aggressive, especially when encased in 4,000 pounds of armor. 

    The photo we sent Aggie to let her know her two new favorite people had arrived. Crazy Americans.

Eventually, we made it there safely and met with our point person, Aggie (pronounced “baggie” without the B). She has been our point

person for the past few months doing a lot of the coordinating behind the scenes. She brought us to our first of many stops of the day: the speech pathology office. There, we met two wonderful, bubbly ladies who spoke very good English and didn’t get mad when I accidentally squirted them with saline water (long story). Dad says that "Speechies" always have the best personalities in the medical field. They stuck a camera up my nose and had me do some speech and articulation tests, which I passed with flying colors (JK if I did I wouldn’t be there in the first place). They said, using some very fancy speechy terms, that my throat closure is 20-50% whenever I talk, when it should be 100%. We next talked about a plan to propose to Dr. Lou and were off to the next stop. They were very impressed with how much I’m able to compensate for my lack of soft palate and said that my speech is surprisingly understandable. Guess all those years in speech therapy did pay off. 

While making conversation with the Speechies, they inquired where we had stayed before coming here. Upon hearing where our hotel had been, they went wide-eyed and quickly informed us that we had been staying in the ghetto part of Taiwan, which explains the questionable quality of food and interesting experience at the night market (they actually both gasped when we mentioned this, confirming that our perceptions of where we had stayed weren’t too far off). 

The following stops our BFF Aggie brought us to were the blood drawing department (quick note: I hate, abhor, despise needles and seeing my blood, which is less than ideal). Fortunately, the nurse who took my blood was the most experienced nurse I’ve ever had, and she only had to poke me once!! It was an answered prayer for sure), the chest x-ray department (where the changing room smelled like donuts), the anesthesiologist’s office (who had the personality of a potato), and a meeting with Dr. Lou and his 3 apprentices. We talked about what the surgery would hold, recovery, and what I’m going to be allowed to eat for the next few weeks (apparently not much). I hadn’t given a lot of thought to recovery because I was mainly focused on not starving to death after my surgery, but apparently there’s going to be a lot more involved than all of my previous surgeries. We are on our own for food when staying in the hospital so fortunately my dad packed a blender to make short work of the mystery 7/11 food. We will see how this goes.

There are 4 parts to this surgery:

Part 1: Since I’m having my final lip revision, they’re going to take some fat from my stomach and not my butt (take that, Molly, now you won’t be able to call me buttface!), mix it with some Botox, and inject it into my upper lip in order to prevent it from moving too much during the healing process to minimize the scarring. Basically, my upper lip will be pretty much numb, if not paralyzed, for about six months. 

Part 2: Since I’m having a nose reconstruction/ rhinoplasty, the doctors are possibly going to be taking cartilage from my ear and then re-locate it to the tip of my nose. They showed me about 15 different cases where they had before and after pictures to help describe what they would be doing. He also thought, for some reason, that he would show me pictures of the process with how they do it with actual photos. I immediately looked away and wanted nothing to do with that. They also might graft some skin and put it on the bridge of my nose. I will also have to protect my septum, bridge, and tip of my nose while it heals, so I’m going to have to wear a plastic brace over it for anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months. I’m also going to have to wear these little plastic/rubber stints to shape my nostrils for 6 months for at least 4 hours a day.

Part 3: The doctor also came up with a game plan to hopefully close up the hole in the roof of my mouth that has failed many previous attempts. He is going to grab some fat from my hip and then place it in the roof of my mouth and then try to seal it up. He is not sure if this will be done through my nose or inside of my mouth. 

Part 4: The trickiest part, Dr. Lou wants to take a flap from the back of my throat and drape it across to the hard/soft palate to turn the large hole into two smaller holes. The concern he wants enough skin to limit the air from going up into the nose when speaking and not too much so that I get sleep apnea from not enough airway. I trust that he will choose the perfect amount. My biggest concern I expressed was that it would take.  

After we finally finished pre-op (which was about 3.5 hours), we headed to our very fancy room, which included a hospital bed, a cot, a couch, a chair, a desk, a bathroom, and a very fancy bidet toilet that allows you to heat up the seat, the water, and do a bunch of other things.

For dinner, we had some microwavable meals from a 7/11 inside the hospital (we finally found a microwave!!). Apparently, the locals are obsessed with 7/11. Thanks to our friend Aggie, we were finally able to figure out what was edible for our not-so-adventurous appetites, so we no longer need to worry about starving to death. We spent about 30 minutes in the store coming up with a game plan for liquid diet and soft food. 

It’s a little weird spending the night in the hospital before I’ve even had my surgery, and even more weird staying 1-2 days after. In America, as soon as I wake up from anesthesia and put my clothes on (with lots of assistance), they load me into a wheelchair, push me out to the curb, hand me a barf bag, and send us on our merry way back home.

My surgery tomorrow is only going to be around four hours long. As I’m writing this, I’m not very stressed, which is definitely new for me because I’m usually a nervous wreck the night before. There’s another answered prayer for sure. 

A few days ago, my mom told me that she was talking to a friend and told her about this little excursion, and the friend told her that she just had a feeling that God gave her a word to share: ordain. I know what the word means, but I can’t express the exact definition, so I looked up dictionary.com. The definition that fits this situation is “to order (something) officially.” I looked up the biblical version and it’s something like “(of God or someone in authority) to order something to happen”. Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot is if God really wanted me to do this. What if I had been so desperate to be done with everything that I convinced myself that what I wanted was what God wanted? What if He didn’t actually want me to come to Taiwan, and that this surgery isn’t in His plan for me? Am I really walking by faith or am I actually walking by sight and manipulating my circumstances? The reminder that God has ordained everything that I have gone through, am going through, and ever will go through is a huge relief. If this trip wasn’t in God’s plan, He would have made that obvious to me and He would have stopped this process because He has complete control over my life and everyone else’s.

My surgery is scheduled for 10 AM here which is 7 PM in California. Thus concludes day 4 of Taiwan.

P.S. Taiwan is going to get hit by a typhoon starting tomorrow for the next couple of days. That should be interesting.

                                                    

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#LikeTheLocals - Day 3

#LikeTheLocals - Day 3

I learned my lesson last night when it took me about an hour and a half to write two blog entries, so I’m starting this one at 2:30 p.m. Unfortunately, this blog will just be me rambling about what I can remember from the day thus far, without much structure (sorry Mrs. Koops and Mrs. Brewer). 

This morning, my dad and I woke up at around 5 in the morning after going to bed at around 1 in the morning, so we didn’t get much sleep. The jet lag skipped a day and is hitting us hard now. We laid in bed for about 3 hours reading and watching the only 2 TV channels that spoke English: the US Open and a sumo wrestling tournament. I bet you can guess which one we spent more time watching.

We hoped to be sneaky and go up to breakfast (which is free, as my dad loves to remind me) around 9:30, because we stereotyped all Asians as early risers. Boy, were we right. There wasn’t much food left because so many people had come and gone, but luckily all the American-looking food was still there because apparently Asians avoid it like the plague. While we were eating, there was a rare White Tourist sighting, far outside their natural habitat. We saw FOUR white people in the span of 30 minutes! It was crazy. Breakfast was a diverse collection of bananas, watermelon slices, oranges, nectarines, hard-boiled eggs, knock-off American cereal, french fries, and chicken nuggest (autocorrect tried to spell it n-u-g-g-e-t-s, but according to the people of Taiwan, “nuggest” are the new thing).

In an effort to be more #likethelocals, we looked up grocery stores near us, and to our surprise, there was one right down the street! Even more to our surprise, it was underground! The people of Taiwan are kind of like gophers, digging under the city and expanding their colony. There is so much more to our street than what we first thought. 

Speaking of underground, we booked a tour with a local (in an effort to learn more about the culture to be more #likethelocals) and agreed to meet at the Taiwan Main Station for the metro/train at 11:30 a.m. To kill time while we waited, we walked around this GIGANTIC underground mall for around 3 hours because the tour lady canceled on us. Oh well. We had a lot of fun walking through all the shops (and converting how much money each item was in USD… it made us feel very intelligent and more #likethelocals because we knew how much we were actually spending). Despite walking around for 3 hours, the only thing we bought was some groceries from another store we found (!!!) and some colorful claw clips for my sisters. It’s funny how a simple purchase can make us feel like we can conquer the world. I was going to buy a pretty yellow sundress and a reusable bag, but my mom quickly vetoed both of my great ideas. She isn’t even physically here and she is still maintaining her fashion tyranny.

We finished up in the underground mall and realized that we were starving and still hadn’t had any authentic boba yet. I navigated through the streets with my dad in tow to a not-at-all-sketchy boba shop. After much pointing, grunting, and pantomiming, we (it was actually just me but I wanted my dad to feel as though he helped) successfully placed an order and got our first taste of authentic Taiwanese boba. It’s totally worth the hype. We were becoming more #likethelocals by finally trying some of their food.

After my dad had somehow managed to order us a somewhat edible lunch at a random restaurant down the street from our hotel (our first hot meal since we got here because all the food is either deep fried, covered in oil, or suspicious looking so none of it is very appetizing), we realized that a tragedy had happened. My dad had thrown away our only fork that we had acquired at Panda Express where we ate lunch before we left LAX. Forks are apparently a hot commodity over here, and spoons and chopsticks are totally overrated. So, I had to eat my food with a weird spoon thingy. Thanks a lot, dad. Not to mention that the food looked like a knock-off Panda Express meal and tasted like the smell of oil.

Side note: food is really weird here. We try to eat #likethelocals, but the locals have built up an immunity to the disgusting-smelling toxin that is oil. Everything here is bathed or deep-fried in this oil that you can smell from a mile away. It clings to you, too, as we learned the hard way after the night market last night when we came home and the smell of oil was stuck deep in our clothes. If it isn’t bathed in oil, it smells awful. I’ve read a lot of travel blogs about how bad the food smells but it still being really good, but my dad and I can’t be too close to the vendors without gagging. Oh well. There’s always McDonald’s and our newfound grocery store (I haven’t emphasized enough how stoked we were to find one because we would kill for some food that we actually recognize!!!). 

We were supposed to hang out for about 4 hours until we left for another night market (selling clothes this time), but we both fell asleep at around 4 and woke up Monday morning at 4 a.m. Fun times. 

Thus concludes day 3 (and the start of day 4 because I didn’t get the chance to post this blog before falling asleep).

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