Really wishing my Japanese was better...

As mentioned a couple of times previously, I'm currently watching a Japanese medical drama called "Godhand Teru" on TV. The first two episodes I watched, I thought "Well, I'll just keep watching because I like Hiraoka Yuta" (the lead actor).

This week's episode (episode 3), though, was pretty interesting, and it really made me wish my Japanese and/or medical knowledge was better.

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Not that I think anyone reading this is likely to care, but just to be safe...

**SPOILER WARNING**

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So yeah, the central plot of this week's episode was that the ace pitcher from the last Koshien tournament (the BIGGEST deal in Japanese high school baseball, and followed widely across the country) had fibrosarcoma in his right thumb and the doctor in charge of his case--a highly skilled young surgeon completely antagonistic towards Teru and his bumbling--advised that the only way to deal with it was to amputate his thumb. Of course, doing so would also put an end to his dreams of a future in baseball.

Teru wanted to find a way to deal with the tumor that would allow the patient to continue playing baseball. Despite much research and agonizing, the scheduled surgery date came and it seemed like there was no other way but to amputate when Teru's desire to protect the boy's dreams for the future enabled him to enter "god hand" (i.e. genius surgeon) mode and he came up with autotransplantation as a solution...

And that's where I couldn't really follow the specifics. In the closing scenes, they showed the boy with his right thumb sewn into his side and they explained that it was being naturally healed inside his body, but I can't figure out how it works, specifically. I mean, I get the general idea (from the show and from a cursory web search on "autotransplantation"), but it bugs me that I can't get a logical picture of the theory/process in my head.

Any med people who can help me out with this?

[Edit May 27, '09: Watched the fansub and learned that what happened was they cut open his thumb and extracted all the affected cells. Only by making sure they removed every bit of tumorous flesh could they be sure it wouldn't spread to other parts of his body. While they were removing the tumorous cells, they discovered it had spread to his tendon. So that's when Teru had to go into "god hand" mode (again) to cut away only the tumorous parts (very difficult) from the tendon. Then they sewed his thumb into his abdomen because there are a lot of fat and blood vessels to aid self-healing--that's the autotransplantation, transferring fat tissue from his abdomen to his thumb.]

Another fast update

Still haven't had time to don't feel like writing a real post yet. But I do have a bunch of pictures I've uploaded to Facebook!

Tokyo in Transit
Anaheim Days 1-2
Anaheim Day 3, LAX
Hanami
Towada Yosakoi Part I
Towada Yosakoi Part II

Other than that, the quick update on my life is:
- work is busy
- my apartment is a disaster zone (again/still)
- I enjoyed a BBQ in Chuo Koen (even though it was windy and rather cold) with the Towada, Shich, and Noheji ALTs, plus a few rounds of Mafia at Bryan's place on Thursday (April 23)
- I'm going to Hiroshima for Golden Week (May 2-5)
- the Kirita Sports Festival is May 17th
- I'm going to Sai Mura (FINALLY) on the weekend of May 23
- I recently finished watching the Tantei Gakuen Q (Detective Academy Q) anime--I enjoyed it, but the live action drama was better
- Along with Godhand Teru (see my previous post) on TV, I'm also currently watching Hotaru no Hikari on DVD; unfortunately I've only been able to get discs 1 and 2 from Tsutaya so far--seems like discs 3 & 4 are perpetually out... (HnH also happens to be the series I'm proof reading scanlations for at J-SiS.)
- Like many others, I changed to summer tires a couple of weeks ago and moved all the winter stuff (winter wipers, snow scraper, shovel) out of the car and thus was woefully unprepared for driving home through the SNOW after watching the Yosakoi Festival










And, on a completely random note, here's a little something I bought towards the end of February. Isn't he cute? Any suggestions for a name?

Godhand Teru

Because it's on my mind, a quick post!

I was randomly browsing through the manga at Tsutaya last Saturday when I noticed a series called Godhand Teru. It was on display because a new TV drama for the series was airing on TBS. Looking at the picture for the drama, I saw that Hiroaka Yuta (not the most famous actor, but I've liked him since watching him in "Swing Girls") would be playing the lead!!

Unfortunately I had just missed the first episode by a couple of hours (it aired just before 8pm, I was at Tsutaya a between 9 and 10pm), but I ended up staying home tonight and catching the second episode!

Admittedly the story is hardly believable--a young boy whose surgeon father died in a car accident after saving his life decides to become a surgeon but is clumsy and only manages to unleash his true capabilities ("god hands") when his patients' lives are in danger--but I'm going to try to follow it and see if it grows on me.

At least I'm finally getting my money's worth out of the bi-monthly fees I pay to NHK! (Before, I only watched TV to check the weather forecast!)

Quick Photo Update

Life has been busy for the past couple of weeks, to say the least. I did manage to upload my Kyoto photos to Facebook, though. So, in lieu of an actual post, here are the links to my Facebook albums! (All together, the comments on each photo form a sort of disjointed blog post, don't they?! Trying to assuage my guilt for not updating properly...)

Kyoto Part I
Kyoto Part II
Kyoto Part III