(P)lucky Day
Welcome to the first edition of our brand new publication — Plucky Day!
Our family had some truly extraordinary experiences during our five years living in Shanghai. The city is a dazzling, futuristic landscape bursting with millions of people from all over China and the rest of the world. Every day brought limitless wonders of possibility and creativity. We had quite a few “it was the best of times” moments, but we also endured plenty of less-than-pleasant days adapting to life in a new country. The culture shock was real.
We actively trained ourselves to notice differences without heaping judgement. We did our best to say that’s different from what I’ve seen before instead of how weird/stupid/awful/gross. Approaching things with curiosity and open minds helped to ease the overwhelm we faced from living in a place so unlike any of the other countries we’d called home.
However, there was one thing we genuinely struggled to understand: public urination. We saw it everywhere we went, from high-end malls to busy street corners. We witnessed lots of children doing it, but there was rarely a day that went by without seeing a grown up doing their business in a place not expressly made for it.
Our housing complex sat on a major street near the Huangpu River with a fancy, almost luxurious public toilet nearby. It was air conditioned in summer, heated in winter, and had an attendant who kept it neat and tidy. Yet every single time I passed it, someone would walk right up to it, unzip their pants, and pee against the small building’s exterior. It was beyond our comprehension, keeping us in a constant state of being mildly grossed out despite our best efforts not to judge. We’d been a shoes-off-inside-the-house family since our first international post in Tokyo in 2001, but this took things from a preference to a firm rule. Whatever we walked through out there did not need to make its way onto our floors in here.
One day I took a taxi across town and witnessed an astonishing seven people urinating into gutters or on sidewalks as I passed. That night at dinner I vented to the family, sarcastically saying I had been especially lucky to see so much urine. We all laughed. And that somehow turned the situation around. It became a source of humor where we’d ask each other how lucky our day had been. Today was quite a lucky day one of us would exclaim, while another would say No fair! I had no luck at all! We still didn’t understand it, but with that little paradigm shift we went from being uncomfortable on an almost daily basis to having a little inside joke that brought us closer together as a family and made our days less overwhelming.
Our lives here in Hong Kong turned upside down during the final week of last year. Our bumpy entry into cancer was nearly unbearable in every conceivable way, with so many questions that needed time and more tests to answer. We knew only that Michael had Acute Leukemia, but not the specific type. We knew there was a possibility of a gene mutation, but had to wait for that to be confirmed. We were choked with fear, gripped with sorrow, unable to eat or sleep, crying out in prayer for mercy. Every day one of the doctors on Michael’s team would tell us two possibilities, bluntly stating they hoped it was one over the other. We would pray so hard for the less awful possibility, only to find out it was the one even the doctor was worried about.
I have been a woman of strong faith my entire life, but this happened so many times in a row I had to stop praying for any specific outcome. I only had two prayers… I would scream Nooooo when my brain would go to the darkest places, and I would ask God to show me I am loved. That was it. I let everyone else around us pray for the little details.
The screaming of Nooooo was a plea to stop me from spiraling into despair and it worked every time (still does). The show me I am loved was just an open ended longing to not feel lost, isolated, or abandoned in the midst of the daily onslaught of new and terrifying updates. I am a creative, quirky girl who loves to laugh more than anything, so this is a prayer which can be answered in any number of ways if I pay the slightest bit of attention.
Some examples: One day an anonymous person left a $500 HKD Starbucks gift card for our family at my son’s work. At the time, the only thing I could consume and expect to keep down were the sugary sweet caramel Frappuccinos at the coffee place near the hospital. They are neither healthy nor inexpensive, but I’d lost ten pounds in one week because I could not tolerate any food at all. Spending money on a treat like that made me feel guilty for so many reasons. So the anonymous gift card was love on so many levels, exactly when I needed it. Another day I dropped Michael off at the hospital very early for a blood draw. I had a few hours to waste before he could leave, but not quite enough time to go all the way home and back again. We’d left too early for me to eat anything, so I went to the nearest McD’s. School had already started and it was after the morning rush, so the place was pretty empty. I chose a seat with open tables on either side of me. I was listening to music in my AirPods, trying not to cry into my Sausage McMuffin while feeling very alone. Suddenly an elderly Chinese man shuffled directly to my table and sat down across from me with his tray of food. He nodded at me, then began to eat. I was taken aback — there were empty tables everywhere, why is he sitting with me? But suddenly my heart lifted as I saw it as a random show of love: I was no longer alone. He never said a word to me, nor I to him, but for that half hour, and the rest of the morning which followed, I did not feel lost or abandoned.
But it all started with the Lucky Day.
Princess Margaret Hospital, home to one of the best hematology departments in the world — and current second home to my husband — is strict with visitors. They allow two at a time, for 90 minutes in the morning and 2.5 hours in the evening, with a four hour break in the middle. The hospital is about 24 kilometers (15 miles) from my home. There are multiple ways to get there, which cost either time or money. From our little beach community on Hong Kong’s biggest island, we can grab a thirty minute taxi ride directly to the door of the building where Michael is being treated. This is easiest and fastest, but also the most expensive. The taxi fare one way is $225 HKD ($29 USD). Taking a taxi both directions, both times, adds up to $900 HKD (~$115 USD) per day, but with just two hours total daily commute time.
Because Michael was handed this shocking diagnosis on my birthday, I said “little birthday treat for the worst possible birthday,” handed over the money, and quietly sobbed in the back seat. The next day was Christmas, and I told the boys, “we’re not having a big Christmas dinner, so we’ll just eat the taxi fare,” and did it again. And then came Boxing Day on December 26th, so once again I spent that money because it’s public holiday in Hong Kong, there were three of us taking the taxi, so why not?
Then we realized Michael would not be coming home any time soon. Blowing that kind of money on transportation was not going to be sustainable.
The more economical option is a 15 minute bus ride to the nearest train station, go two stops, and then either walk about 20 minutes up the hill to the hospital or grab one of the infrequent city buses that stop in front of the Princess Margaret Hospital complex, and then another few minutes of walking to the building where Michael is being treated. The maximum cost for that, one way, is $40 HKD ($5.50 USD), or $170 HKD ($22 USD) if you make two round trips in a day. That’s a substantial savings over taking a taxi, but it takes a little over an hour each way. In practice, it’s worked out to a minimum of five hours of commuting a day. Due to those strict visiting hours at the hospital, I can only spend a maximum of four hours in Michael’s presence in exchange for that transit time, with hardly any time at home to do anything productive beyond walking our dog, attempting to eat, tossing clothes in the wash, and collapsing.
Time or money, it takes a toll either way.
January 7th was the first Tuesday of 2025. It was a public transit day because my wallet was empty but my Octopus Card (transit pass) was full. I’d missed the first bus, then the first train, and then the other bus up the hill to the hospital. I was feeling sour about it, on top of the worry and fear. I decided to just walk up the hill instead of waiting the twenty minutes for the next bus so I could be on time for morning visiting hour. It was less than a week since we’d learned the exact subtype of Acute Leukemia Michael had, less than a week since we’d learned he was positive for the Philadelphia Chromosome mutation, less than a week since he’d begun chemo, all things we’d prayed wouldn’t be necessary, wouldn’t happen, wouldn’t turn out that way.
During that walk I realized I didn’t have it in me to pray for all the worsening things in our life. It felt too much like asking for food and being handed a rock. So I asked for something else.
Hey there God. Maybe you’ve noticed life is pretty awful at the moment. Everything I’ve asked for, the opposite happens. I am lost and scared and it’s really hard to imagine everything is going to be okay at some point in the future when right now nothing is okay. Can you just make it very clear we are still seen and not forgotten even when it feels that way? Can you just show me I am still loved?
Because of sidewalk construction and the steep grade of the road, I could only see one other person on foot, a man strolling some distance ahead of me. He quite suddenly veered into a little bump-out off the main sidewalk. He stopped, facing the trees next to the path, his arms down, hands in front of him. How odd, I thought, wonder what he’s up to. Maybe there’s a bird? But why is he looking down? And then something about the way he was standing fired a synapse in my brain, making a connection to our time in Shanghai nearly eight years ago…
Was it possible…
Could it be…
Am I having…
A Lucky Day???!!!
I froze in my tracks, mouth wide open. The man finished his business, got back on the sidewalk and continued on his way, never looking back. And then the full ridiculousness of the moment hit and an explosion of laughter burst forth from within me until actual tears streamed down my face and I was gasping for air. I tried to get my act together but belly laughs in a woman of a certain age who has carried a couple pregnancies means I had to tightly cross my legs and try to stand still lest I also urinate in an unexpected place. I just laughed and laughed until my face hurt, vision blurred from the crying.
Finally I texted Michael a photo so he could share in the moment:
I felt completely seen in a way which could not have been more specifically tailored exactly for me, in exactly the right time and place.
Okay, okay, I can hear your thoughts… Umm, Heather, this is a stretch. It’s human waste, a little disgusting, and frankly this is not what I thought I was going to get when I signed up for this. Fair point! But stick with me for a second.
I am, as previously mentioned, a creative, quirky girl who loves to laugh more than anything. As I’m writing this on April 10th in a coffee place near the hospital while Michael is having a plasma transfusion because his platelets are dangerously low, I can tell you nothing else in this terrible year has made me laugh like seeing that inside joke from long ago come right back to life in the most unexpected place, during arguably the worst week of my life to date.
Like the paradigm shift we experienced back in Shanghai while struggling with culture shock in a new place, there I was on that first Tuesday morning of 2025, having yet another paradigm shift while dealing with the shock of a whole new culture: the Hematology Department of Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong.
Urine on a sidewalk is nothing compared to the amount of bodily fluids seen in a blood cancer ward. For starters, there’s blood, a considerable amount. It’s taken out of patients multiple times a day in syringes, and put back into them by the bagful when necessary. Every bit of food and fluid is measured and recorded, both as it goes in and as it comes out. Everyone on the ward is in a different stage of chemotherapy, and the side effects are managed well, but there’s still a lot of nausea which means there’s a lot of vomiting too, and not all of it makes it into a toilet or sickbag.
Having a Shanghai-style Lucky Day at the start of this treacherous cancer journey was a reminder that at least once in our lives we have already made something awful into something manageable. And if you’ve done something once, you can do it again.
But how? I mean, this isn’t simply getting used to public urination, which let’s be honest, you can always just look away from. There is no way to look away from this. We are in over our heads, drowning in it every moment of every day. And this is going to continue not just for a few months, but for years, plural. So what do we need to face this awful thing which is trying to steal the happily-ever-after ending we so deeply long for?
More than luck, what we really need right now is pluck.
It takes heaps of courage to keep moving forward with our hearts open to whatever each day brings, especially when most of the days since December 24, 2024 have brought such scary, terrible, difficult things. Pretending none of it is happening not helpful. Telling myself I’m not allowed to be scared doesn’t work because almost everything about this season is scary. Michael is my best friend, my partner in all that I do, the love of my life. He is precious to me. Life with him gets better every single year. We want so many more of them.
Fear is floating in the air all around us, sometimes wrapping us so tightly we can barely breathe. But we can still choose to wake up each morning and bravely face the day with courage. With pluck. We need more than just a little inside joke about urine to get through this — we need spirited and determined courage.
I have no idea where all this is going — here I am writing a story without a clue how it ends, which conventional wisdom says is pretty risky. You’ve been invited to read along, to invest your time and maybe even your money, and you boldly said yes to this mess. Thank you. I am so glad you’re here, whatever may come. Let’s do this together.
