Enough

While I was in the hospital I thought it was going to be a great time to lose some weight. The meals were certainly conducive to weight loss! Simple is a gentle way of describing the menu!

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the meals. I did. Because there wasn't much to do all day, we patients on the orthopedic ward looked forward to the three meals and gobbled down all that was set before us. And it was enough! In fact, if I think of a word to describe my one week hospital stay, the word would be "Enough". The hospital wasn't glamorous but people were being healed. It was enough. The food wasn't restaurant standards, but patients were filled and nourished. It was enough. I learned how much more I eat than I really need! (Of course I burn a few more calories in my normal daily life but even so...)

So here are a few pictures of my meals while in the hospital. I think I took a picture of each meal but I guess you don't want to see 23 pictures of hospital trays.

This was a typical breakfast tray. There was either two slices of bread or else a large hot dog bun... And jam. And either a cold sausage or slice of ham with chopped cabbage on the side or in this case, stewed cabbage and egg. And milk.

I noticed some people got rice gruel instead of the bread but I guess the nurses decided I'd probably prefer bread rather than gruel.

This was a pretty fancy lunch one day. When the nurses brought it in my roommates and I all let out an "Ooh. Noodles for lunch!"

Cold noodles, dipping broth, grated radish and chopped mushrooms, deep fried fish cakes. Orange slices.

And this was a typical dinner menu. Simmered slice of codfish. Cucumber and boiled cabbage, radish and carrot salad. A big serving of rice! And grapefruit slices.

I noticed when leaving the hospital that the bill included a meal fee for about $70. I stayed 8 days in the hospital and had 23 meals. 23 meals for $70! Pretty reasonable!!!

You can see how I might expect to lose some weight... but I didn't. And now that I'm home my friends keep bringing me fancy cakes... And I'm not up to walking great distances nor back at the pool...

Hospital food was enough. Now I'm struggling with over abundance!

Paper cranes

I am gradually getting back into the rhythm of cleaning and cooking. Here I have time to clean but can't really get down low enough to do scrubbing. Pushing the vacuum cleaner is about my level right now.

Tetsu has forbidden me to walk Choco. Too bad we were never able to train to her to walk quietly by our side. She lunges and pulls and changes directions in an instant. She also never has warmed up to other people so I can't even ask my other dog walking friends to take her out for a tandem jaunt with their dogs... Poor Choco. The best I can do right now is go out to her yard and at arm's distance give her a good brushing everyday. She needs it! Look at all that shed fur on the ground! For a dog with a short coat she sheds like crazy!!! I guess for the rest of the summer Choco is not going to get an afternoon walk... She'll have to be satisfied with quality brushing time.

***********

Yesterday's post ended with my roommates and me doing origami (paper folding), one of Japan's traditional childhood pleasures. As a matter of fact, in our room there was a lovely (faded) decoration of a thousand folded cranes hanging by the window. This decoration has been there awhile according to my roommate who was hospitalized in the same room last year also. And no, I did not count all the cranes to come up with number 1000.


I wrote this post in 2007 if you want to read how the tradition of making cranes got started. I imagine that the cranes in our hospital room had been made by a group of friends for someone who was hospitalized... prayers for a quick recovery... and then the person left it at the hospital to cheer on other temporary hospital residents. It was lovely to look at and wonder about how the person who received it is doing now...

Can you tell how the origami cranes have been stacked and then strung together probably in groups of 100? If you make one crane (Haru-chan's table in yesterday's post had single origami cranes on it...) the wings can be spread and it will stand alone. All together like this is a little difficult to distinguish each crane but the message is clear to any Japanese.

"Get well soon!"

...and I did!

Activities

It is a rainy day today and so I resisted going out for a walk with Tetsu and Choco. I am slow but I can walk! In fact I went cat and dog food shopping yesterday (drove the car!) and in my most helpless voice asked a stock boy to carry my 15 pounds of dog food and extra large bag of cat food to the cashier for me. He very kindly carried it out to the car for me too!

**********

Back to hospital life.

After the first night in post-op, I was moved into a 6 patient room and spent the rest of the week making friendships and appreciating the hospital staff. On the orthopedic ward there is a variety of injuries and I quickly learned that torn cartilage of the knee (my problem) is one of the lesser injuries that need to be treated.

From beginning to end, one of my roommates , Mrs. Kikuchi, was in the bed across from me. She was in the hospital for a hip replacement that somehow got delayed because of complications. She spent her whole time cheerfully attached to an IV and we shared books and cookies that visitors brought in. (She flattered me by assuming I could read her books.)

Two obaachans (old grandmas), both 93 were in the hospital because of broken hips... Both were very clear minded but Haru-chan was bright and smiling to everybody while Kawada-san was angry at the world and especially at the hospital. It made a world of difference in how they were treated and how we interacted with them. Haru-chan was always thanking people and being apologetic about the care she needed, Kawada-san was always muttering about the slow care. To Haru-chan, student nurses flocked asking if she remembered their names etc. To Kawada-san, if someone asked her a question she would ignore them completely or complain that they had disrupted her sleep...

Two of my roommates were also in the hospital for torn knee cartilage and so we compared notes on the doctors' different methods of treatment or our own symptoms. I was very grateful for Mrs. Takanohashi who was operated on three days after me but was up and walking a day before me!

"How can you be walking already?! I've got to get rid of these crutches and get moving!"

Thanks to Mrs. Takanohashi, I found a good rival who spurred me to be more courageous in taking my first steps.

Up and down the hallway the rooms were filled with people that needed to be wheeled back and forth to the bathrooms causing a lot of extra work for the nurses. Many, MANY of the older patients were in various stages of dementia and throughout the days and nights we could hear them calling for family members or just lost in their confusion. The nurses patiently cared for them but I learned anew how hard it is to care for people that don't even realize they are in pain or need to be careful. Patients escaping from beds, playing with toilet paper, removing IVs or refusing to eat. And the nurses were putting in hours from 4:30 pm to 12:00 noon the next day! How they could continue to be cheerful I don't know!

Most of us patients became bored very quickly... I made my three Alabama beauty blocks within a couple of days and was left with no handwork. But some student nurses assigned to Haru-chan were helping her do origami and gradually the origami classes extended to the rest of us who wanted to try. We had so much fun and were all very proud to show each new creation we'd made! Just like little children.

"Look! Look! I made a heart!"

"Can you tell that this is supposed to be a snail?"

"Haru-chan! Wow! You can make a crane from memory!"

For all the pain-killers and IVs and physical therapy, our hospital room stayed active and cheerful from beginning to end. (Hopefully that was good for Mrs. Kawada...)

(← 93 year old Haru-chan making a crane.)

Tadaima

Tadaima~~~! (That means "I'm home~~!" in Japanese.)

I set a somewhat wobbly foot into the house yesterday afternoon and have been calling people and putting things in order since then. I'm ready for some blogging time!

I had to laugh when I saw how Leiya and Yanna-chan took on the duties of blogging with such gusto! My goodness! They jumped right in didn't they?! It sounded like they had a lot of fun looking at their lives from an outsider's view and I know they must have been tickled pink to get so many comments and so much encouragement. I'm grateful to you all for supporting them!

So... Do you want to hear about how MY week went? I kept my camera handy the whole time but I'm afraid the scenery didn't change much as the days went by. Still... this could become a long post... Or several long posts.

**************

Tetsu took me to the general hospital on Tuesday morning and signed me into Admissions. Then upstairs I was taken to the post-op room and made ready for surgery. As we waited for the nurse to bring me a gown and do other nursing things Tetsu raised his eyebrows and said,

"Maybe we should have gone to a different hospital..."

How I laughed at that! Too late now! Here I am!

Tetsu was referring to the appearance of the room. Now let me make something clear. Japan has some wonderfully modern, clean, efficient hospitals. Japanese technology ranks among the highest in the world.

BUT... this particular hospital has seen better days... to put it mildly. Tetsu's raised eyebrows were in response to the cracks in the floor and the water stains on the walls, the drooping frayed curtains, the pipes along the ceiling, the greyness of the halls. It turns out that this hospital is over 60 years old and is slowly being rebuilt. In four years the city will have a lovely, new, modern, hospital, but for now, the ward that I was in was nearly out of Dickens.

Hallways were dark (extra dark because the hospital is trying to support Japan's Save Energy movement that has been seriously put into effect after the March earthquake.)

The one sink that serves 40 patients on the ward is heated by an old boiler with a sign posted to not open any windows because the pilot light would blow out!


There was only one elevator servicing 5 floors and there was a constant traffic jam of wheelchairs, beds (transporting bedridden patients to the bowels of the hospital) linen carts, meal shelves, nurses and visitors who lined up waiting for the creaky elevator to arrive. (I noticed that doctors never had time to wait for the elevator and bounded up and down the 5 flights of stairs.)


On one of my trips to the bathroom, (one women's and one men's... two toilets in each) I noticed this little arrangement... a cockroach catcher. I never saw any cockroaches though...

Thankfully, the dreariness was only in the ward... from what I could see (and I couldn't see much as I had to remove my contact lenses) the operating room was as modern as you can get and my brief interval there was pain free and comfortable. (Why I had to be completely naked to have my knee operated on, I don't know, but if it makes it easier for the doctors, go right ahead and observe my whole body!) I never did really know who was doing the operating because people kept talking to me from different parts of the room but I recognized the young woman doctor's voice whom I'd first seen.

Here I am, an hour and 40 minutes later... No kiss from Tetsu, but a smile and a pat on the head...




And there I was left until the next morning.... Me and my IV....

My mother is back :) She is eager to get back to you guys, so this will probably be our last post! Thank you for being so kind and generous with your comments- we're thinking of starting a blog of our own!

Hey everybody, this is Yanna. We felt terrible for not posting anything last night, but we went out to a bar! We decided to take a night off from school, boys, stress, and the world. Leiya knew that I had been feeling a little down after my best friend moved to San Diego for a summer internship (we're in Ohio), so she took me on a 'date'! We got all dressed up and went to a place called Bar Louie. It is a bar, but also a pretty nice restaurant. We ate sooo much food, and by the time we got home, we were too tired to make the treck out to the union. Instead, we fell asleep in the living room and didn't get to bed until the wee hours of the morning.

Here are some pictures of us, do you think we look alike? In the past, we've had several comments from random strangers that we look like sisters! In addition to my dad. But we don't see that at all! I am 5'4" and Yanna is 5'1". I am mostly Japanese and Yanna's a true american mixture. We take the comments as a compliment and pretend like we are realated :)

We had a lot of fun writing the blog, thank you for your encouragement and support! We will stop by in the future! I will try to send my mom some pictures more often to keep you guys updated on our lives!

See you soon,

Love, Leiya and Yanna.

soo close, but soo far away...

No words from Tetsu-san :( Probably too busy going back and forth between work and the hospital. Yanna and I are wondering what to write on the blog... We realized that our life is too boring to talk about lol. I personally don't get bored easy so I just entertain myself with things like watching movies, cooking, sleeping, and walk around in the nice weather. And the ultimate treat of going to Panera Bread! (That's what I did today :)

We have been having some problems with this blog... First, we had trouble posting pictures. Then, as you may have noticed, our formatting for our very first blog was a little off. I think we've fixed the problem, but only time will tell! Then, of course, since we don't have the internet at our apartment, we have been running all over town, and all over campus, trying to find a good connection. We have now settled quite nicely in the breezeway of the Student Union Building. The building itself is closed, but here in the breezeway, we can still get an excellent connection any time of night. It does seem like a cruel joke though that there are comfortable chairs just feet away, safely behind a wall of glass, while we are sitting on the hard floor lol.

Recovering!

Hey Everybody!

We got a report today that Tanya-san is doing very well. She has gotten some quilting materials to distract her, and has even been able to walk slowly without crutches, though it is only her fourth day of rehab. Also, they have been feeding her very healthy food which makes her feel better about her stay in the hospital. Still no word on when she will be home, but she has had several visitors from her friends at the pool and also from the school where she does her cross walk duty.

A wonderful friend, Mrs. Suga has been updating us on my mother's condition. She has emailed me some pictures and left me messages on facebook to let me know how my mom is doing. Mrs. Suga has also been helping her to walk and has been visiting almost everyday. What a nice lady!

Just Another Day

Hello everyone!

My dad e-mailed me today to let me know that the surgery went well. However my mom is not up and moving around on her own yet. She is little bit dissapointed that she can't walk. I think she wants to go back to her daily life up and busy! But this is a good time to take some time off and rest.

Hi! I'm Yanna, Leiya's roommate. Since you don't know me, I'll just tell you a little bit about my day, and maybe you will understand more about me.

I study architecture and design, so right now I'm working at a small furniture store. Today we did't have many costomers, so most of my day consisted of browsing the internet, contemplating what Leiya and I would write about for this blog, and reading Pride & Prejudice.

I have never read it before and, though I am enjoying it, I have to admit that my brain is getting a lot of exercise. I find myself getting lost in words like "thither" and "unalloyed inclination".

Right now, Leiya and I are at a friend's apartment getting ready to play phase 10 (a card game) and have dinner.

Hello! This is Leiya, we just finished dinner, and it was excellent! I have an amazing friend who can cook almost all kinds of food, and today we had Tempura, spicy chicken, fish sticks, rice, and beef curry. We are stuffed! :) I won phase 10, and Yanna came in 6th (last lol). All in all it was a good day with friends. Now it is time to head back to the apartment.

There are lots of great things about our apartment, but here are some of the problems that we have:
1. Bugs- disgusting centipedes, ants, and spiders.
2. Obnoxious neighbors- they fight too much, party a lot, and never say 'hello' in the parkinglot.
3. No air conditioning, or laundry, or peep hole- :(
4. No internet- which is why we didn't get to post anything last night (bad excuse).
5. Very noisy train- Passing by our apartment about 5 times a day and some in the middle of the night.
6. Bad roommates- Yanna is too motherly and laughs too much! Leiya says 'hanged' too often (instead of hung) and has too many large pieces of art in the apartment!

These things are what make our apartment homey.

We do not have any pictures today.. But pretty soon we will :)

She's Alive!!! sorry for the late post!

Hello everyone! I am Leiya. As you may know from the previous post my mother has thrown out her knee, so for the next few days my roommate Yanna and I will be taking charge of this blog!

My mother's knee surgery went well, and she will be home in the next few days. I will keep you all up dated on her progress. I'm sure she would love to be writing this herself. In the meantime, let me introduce my roommate.

Since most of you already know me from my mother's blog, I'll tell you about Yanna. She and I have been roommates for almost a year now. Since I am an art major, and Yanna is an interior design major, our apartment is lots of fun. Along with our extensive art collection, we have a few guitars. One of them was given to us by a friend who no longer plays. Another is old, orange, and junky, but serves as a temporary learning device. (According to Yanna lol) The last one is mine and it's a decent pretty average guitar. One of our goals this summer is to learn how to play a song together. So far, it's going pretty slowly but we're still having fun!

We will post again tomorrow. For now, please pray that my mom heals quickly so that she can get back to doing the things she loves!

Us being silly :)

Preparing

Heading into the countdown so I thought I'd get in a last post. I'm out of here before 8:00 tomorrow morning.

When I came to Japan I told my mother that if I ever ended up in the hospital to not assume I was in dire straits just because of the length of the stay. It used to be one would be in the hospital for weeks and weeks for even minor things. People practically lived in the hospital! I ended up spending two months in the hospital when I was pregnant with Takumi. Nowadays there is a shortage of beds so patients are encouraged to go home earlier. I sure hope I can be back within a week... Is that positive thinking?

In order to get ready for tomorrow's admission, I was given a list of things to bring along with me. Toothbrush. Shampoo and rinse. Chopsticks. Spoon. Tea cup. This is a lot less stuff than my mother-in-law needed when she was in the hospital a couple of years ago. Among other things, she was told to bring fanny wipes! Whew! I'm glad I don't need those! For a $5 a day rental fee the hospital will supply me with a bath towel, two hand towels and pajamas daily... I've never heard of this system in Japan before.

Most Japanese hospitals are not very glamorous. Posters attached to the walls with thumbtacks, Arrows and lines painted on the linoleum to guide people to the x-ray room or the laboratories for blood tests. Patients all sit on benches facing the same way waiting for numbers to be flashed up on a screen. The doctors move very little. They will sit at their desk with their computer and patients are called in to them, prodded and poked, computer screen explained and the patient moves back to the waiting room so that another patient can be brought in. And there isn't really the question of "Which doctor shall I see?" The patient sees the doctor whose cubicle is open depending on when the number is called. Until I was pushed into the cubicle I had no idea that the doctor seeing me was a woman and actually I have a feeling that she is not the one who will be doing the surgery... but I won't know that until I am on the operating table! Not a lot of time and effort spent building up a strong doctor/patient relationship!

For all the waiting and repetition of tests and delays etc. there are good things to be said about the Japanese medical system... I have to think about this a bit... Ah yes, it doesn't cost very much to see a doctor. Thursday I went to one hospital and had x-rays, an MRI, local anesthesia, knee manipulation, taping and rented crutches and the fee came to about $150. When we return the crutches they will return the $50 deposit that was included in all that. I don't know how much Tetsu had to pay at the major hospital the next day but when we went back on Saturday for another MRI (a much more space station like machine than at the first hospital!) Tetsu paid out about $70. That doesn't seem bad to me. I don't have the papers in front of me but I think Tetsu asked me if I wanted a single room for about $80 a night or a double room for $50 or a triple room for like $20. I'm pretty sure if I were in the States we would be talking about numbers with another zero in there!

Anyway... I guess I'm ready as I'll ever be. On top of the chopsticks and spoon that I'm supposed to bring I also will be packing in some pre-cut Alabama Beauty pieces that I've spent the morning preparing. Now THAT's positive thinking!

Two blocks down (but not ironed) since being laid up.... how many more to go?

(There is no reason for having Mi's pictures in this post. She is just cute and was sitting on me this morning.)

Bored

Okay. I'm bored (I never thought I'd ever say that!) so even though there isn't any news I'll just keep blogging. Poor you.

This is the view from where I sit. Left over breakfast on the left. The remote control for the lights. The remote control for the TV. Beyond that, my Kindle.　A bowl holding sewing implements. Reading glasses, a card from my friend, scissors. In front of that my cell phone and my camera.

My computer. Beyond that the Alabama Beauty block I did yesterday. An envelope of medicine. My coffee cup.

I am wrapped in a blanket (though it is not cold. It makes me feel like Heidi's Clara in her wheelchair with a blanket over her legs) and there is one cat under the blanket at my feet and another on top of the blanket at my feet. They growl at each other through the blanket.

Tetsu finally went to work this morning even though it is a Sunday. He is carrying the world on his shoulders. He takes care of me and worries that I might fall when he is not around.

"Do not let that cell phone out of reaching distance!"

He cleans house. He shouts at cats who are fighting or being a nuisance. He yells at Choco who is complaining about not being taken for her regular walk. This morning I reluctantly reminded him that today is "clean the neighborhood day" and he sighed loudly and joined other residents out cutting weeks and cleaning gutters. He does grocery shopping and tried cooking.

Occasionally Tetsu asks what I want. "What do you want for dinner?" "What do you want me to do before I leave?" What do you want me to shop for?" But my answer is always, "Anything is fine." because I don't want to make more work for him. I don't know what annoys him more, a vague answer or a request to go find something I'm not even sure where I've put. Sigh... Who knew that one person out of action could cause so many problems.

My friend, Kaoru-san, brought over lunch for me today and even under shirts and things that she has found useful when she was in the hospital. Yeah! And I've asked her to go buy me a couple things in ladies clothing... I'm sure Tetsu will be happy to be relieved from that duty. He is of the old generation and in his book, men do NOT buy women's clothing for them.

I am being cared for!

Crutches

I'm still here... A long day yesterday and not much progress. Tetsu was irritated right down to his boots. The short story is that I will be at home until Tuesday when I go in for surgery the same day. THAT'S when I'll be away from the computer. So until then...

The last post's picture was taken while I waited to have my knee manipulated and photographed etc. THAT'S why I was still smiling (less so afterwards). Also Tetsu couldn't believe that I wanted a picture for posterity right there in the hospital. How far do your blogging posts go?! So I was laughing while people around me wondered why my husband was taking a picture of me in such a fix.

The first hospital (that we went to on Thursday,) was great. Lovely nurses and staff, nice, friendly capable doctor. If only they did surgery there everything would have been great. But they don't. We should have known that. So the morning spent getting a diagnosis and MRI and x-rays and then taped up for a trip to the major hospital yesterday. The major hospital (not so major really) is in the next city over and they don't see patients after 10:00.

Tetsu got me to the hospital by 9:00. Lots of papers, LOTS of people, LOTS OF WAITING! This is what annoys Tetsu. We all sit there on benches or in my case, a wheel chair while hordes of people mill around and everyone looks grumpy. Occasionally a nurse will come out calling someone into the inner workings of the hospital and finally after an hour and a half I got to see a nice doctor. Who said that she had looked at the x-rays and MRI results and yes, I would definitely need surgery.

So. Go get more x-rays taken, do other tests, go home and come back the next day (today) after they make an appointment for another MRI. They like their own MRIs. And schedule surgery for Tuesday.

"Mrs. Watanabe. Do you want local anesthetic or general? Local is a spinal block. General means you have to be admitted to the hospital the day before."

By this time Tetsu was in his irritated, pursed lips mode and wasn't offering advice to me.

"It's your knee. You decide yourself."

So I decided local... because I figure women are strong (those of us who have experienced childbirth), Tetsu is already annoyed that he has to take so much time off from work to drive me around and fill in forms etc. He also has to spend Monday taking his own mother to ANOTHER major hospital and that's another day off from work and another full day of irritation at the hospital.

We could have saved a whole day if we had just come to this major hospital on the first day but live and learn.

Another thing to decide was whether to just be admitted yesterday and sit around all weekend waiting for Tuesday. But that just costs money and besides Tetsu thought I'd be happier at home with cats and handwork (he brought some downstairs for me) and the computer. So that's why I am home.

BUT, on the way home we stopped to eat lunch and me on my crutches and not very good at using them crashed over backwards frightening other customers, sending the restaurant staff into a panic, and getting Tetsu more upset than ever.

"You can't manage those dumb things. You never did have much arm strength. I should have insisted they just admit you."

The only damage from the crash was bruised pride and a sore rear-end. And now I'm scared stiff to move from whatever chair I am in. This is going to be a long weekend...

As I said, Tetsu brought down scissors, fabric and even the templates I wanted so I am back to hand sewing my Alabama Beauty blocks. There is a plus to everything! This quilt may get a bit more color to it!

Okay... I'm off to the hospital again. Tetsu has taken the third day in a row off from work... He is cheerfully whistling while he cleans house so I guess he is over his annoyance. When he is happy he is an angel!

Bad dice throw

I just told someone yesterday that I never liked playing The Game of Life. It always seemed that things would be going along great and with the toss of the dice suddenly life would take a bad turn. Well, I guess I proved that it is not just on the board game. In real life too!

Yesterday was normal. I taught at the kindergarten, taught ladies, taught elementary school kids, went to the pool, cooked dinner. Went to bed. And in the middle of the night I got up to go to the bathroom and my knee went out. WAY OUT! Crawl to the bathroom and back to bed but I knew that the knee was damaged. Yep. I can't stand up. I can't walk. I can't do much of anything.

Tetsu took the day off from work and took me to the doctors. Not that I'm surprised but I will probably be hospitalized tomorrow (I have to go to a major hospital tomorrow morning) and have surgery on the knee. Which means I will not be blogging for awhile! So this post is to let you know that I haven't disappeared... just am incapacitated.

This is a time when I wish I had all my sewing things downstairs. No going back upstairs for awhile. I can't even direct Tetsu to certain fabric and templates so that I can do some hand sewing. I'm not that organized. And nothing ready to be handquilted either... So... Here I sit.

Anyway... I'm busy trying to master the art of hopping with crutches. Maybe tomorrow I'll be rolling around in a wheelchair again.

I really don't like The Game of Life!

Wheat

I don't know why I always take a picture of the wheat fields every year. I guess I like wheat. Maybe it reminds me of the Bible verse,

"Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy."
Psalm 96:12

Rice in the distance, wheat in the foreground. The fields are abundant!