Onsen Delights

5. The art of communal bathing in Japan

Print by Torii Kiyonaga.

Newtown, May 18, 2024.

LB is the breast I lost in my unilateral mastectomy on March 6. Rightie Tightie (RT) is the remaining (smaller) breast. Since the day before surgery I have been writing letters/odes to Leftie Bestie on FaceBook and transferring here to Substack. Sometime down the track I’m thinking to collect them in a memoirella called My Left Breast.

Dear Leftie Bestie,

Sorry you haven’t heard from us in a couple of weeks. We are back in Newtown now, so here is a catch up on our last days in Japan.

Rightie Tightie and I continued to make the most of our time in Tokyo, seeing as much as we could, doing long walks from one neighbourhood to another along quiet back streets. It was on one such walk we discovered our local onsen. We soon became regulars, wishing of course you were with us as we tried out the four different kinds of pools and the two different kinds of saunas. One pool is 40 degrees and comes from a natural spring, another has massage jets with the strength of three masseuses pummelling hot water into your back and legs. But my favourite was the carbonated water bath. Not as hot as the others, but oh so floaty and relaxing, it’s how I imagine floating in the Dead Sea to feel. Google tells me the CO2 bubbles forming on your skin exert an activation of micro-circulation and vasodilatation, decreasing the state of stress and providing deep relaxation. I can’t remember when I last felt so chill.

It’s definitely the most popular pool and I tell you once you get in you never want to get out. I would lay back anchoring one leg to the side of the pool while Rightie Tightie floated right up to the surface, as did you LB, as did you, well, the part of me that used to be you — the phantom you, the absent you —I really felt you with us too.

That’s when we weren’t busy looking-while-not-looking at the wonderful community of naked women getting in and out of the various pools, washing themselves so thoroughly at little wash stations on little stools, throwing buckets of cold water over themselves. Japanese women are so beautiful LB, wouldn’t you agree? On the street they are all so well dressed, they all have such style: older, younger, middle aged, all so elegant. But naked in the bathhouse I think they are even more so. And such beautiful breasts LB, all shapes, all sizes, all roundnesses. I almost gasped when another young woman entered the pool, so un-self conscious, so quietly confident. And when the old ladies with rolls of delicious flesh sat in the freezing cold pool for the longest time, water right up to their noses, white washcloth turbans on their heads, having a cackle with their friends, I was in love LB, I was in awe, I loved these women. And do you know what, LB? They didn’t bat an eyelid at the long, thin red scar drawn across my body where you used to be. No one was looking LB — well like me, looking but not looking.

And do you know what else LB? When Rightie Tightie and I first came to the onsen, I was a bit self conscious, I did drape the wash cloth over your scar LB, and I’m not sure why. Was I wanting to protect myself? Or was I wanting to protect them, to shield their eyes from a confronting sight. I think they saw you LB, I think somewhere they registered your absence. Somehow they noticed this older woman who is half boy, half woman. That’s how I feel LB, when each evening I massage your scar in front of the mirror. On your side I feel like a teenage boy, like I could go out and lift weights and conquer the world. On Rightie Tightie’s side I feel like a fifteen year old girl!

Ah, isn’t life strange LB, isn’t life strange? As we began our homeward journey I was aware of all the pleasures I was leaving behind and I started making mental lists of the things I wanted to change when we got back. How all the discomforts I felt as a stranger in a strange land would soon become exotic memories. All the things I missed like sourdough toast would be so plentiful that I’d go searching for onigiri every morning for breakfast instead.

The thing I most wished I could change when I got home was the Seven Eleven store. If I would wave a wand and turn all those ridiculous convenience stores on my street into Japanese convenience stores stacked full of sushi, sashimi, onigiri, rice balls, bento boxes brimming with healthy delicacies, I would. But then I wouldn’t have the longing for that ‘other’ place…

and I do love the longing LB, I do love the longing.

Print by Hashiguchi Goyo.

LB, so many people want to know how I’m feeeling since completing the immune enhancing therapy (AIET) in Tokyo. Apparently some people feel an energy boost after the treatment while others feel just the same. For me, initially after each infusion of the boosted cells, I felt quite tired and the general tiredness I had when I arrived still comes and goes, but as the days have gone on, I can say I do feel quite a bit lighter and brighter. Maybe it’s that lovely rose pink hue you can see in the pics below slowly doing its job, although apparently the liquid cells are white. On the last day they told me that in that dose alone I was getting back was 6.1 billion enhanced cells! How incredible is that!

Test results conducted at the end of my Tokyo treatment at the N2 Clinic showed my NK cells had increased and my tumour markers where normal. This is a good result as my immune system before beginning the treatment was extremely low (possibly due to the Chikungunya Virus I got in India last November). We will continue to to monitor the situation at six week intervals with tests by Genomics for Life lab in Brisbane, the same lab where you were sent for extra tests LB. The N2 Clinic also have my cells in storage so it is likely I will go back for back for a top up early next year.

I have nothing but praise LB for the team of doctors and nurses who looked after me and all those behind-the-scene lab technicians who did the major work of enhancing my immune cells. And for my cancer adviser and advocate Grace Gawler who directed me there in the first place. And big thanks go to all our dear friends, for making it possible. So far we’ve raised 27K which is going a long way to covering costs of the Japan treatment.

Follow my Leftie Bestie episodes to find out how after my mastectomy instead of opting for chemo and radiotherapy, I travelled to Japan for AIET, a non invasive immune boosting therapy. Thank you to all those who contributed to my fundraiser to help recoup the costs of my Japan treatment and travel.