The Last Day....

This is my last day in the States. I don't know when I will be making this trip again. 

My mom and Shori and I will be going to SeaTac this afternoon and spending the night in a hotel there. Then I will go to the airport at 5am tomorrow and fly out by 7:30am. Shori will probably come to the airport with me on the free Shuttle to help with suitcases and keep me company while I stand in line. He'll go back to the hotel afterwards and he and Gram-mom will check out when they want to.

I've gotten a lot accomplished this trip, got to see almost everyone that I wanted to, but I'm still sad that I can't stay longer. Well, maybe someday Tak and I will pack up everything in Japan and come here to stay for good. That would be nice, but....! We'd have to be certain that this is where we want to spend the rest of our lives and have a good job or income to do it. I like Japan. I just don't like the weather.... and the bugs... and not being able to completely understand everything around me and what people are saying to me.

At least, Shori is back home and healthy. Most of his school stuff for next quarter he will have to take care of himself. We've done a lot together these last couple of weeks but he can't get everything completed until the teachers return on the 14th. Classes start on the 22nd.

We've gotten things settled with paying his hospital bills. There may be a few more that come over the next couple of weeks but either the Charity Care Fund from the Hospital will cover it or my mom will use my credit card number to pay for the rest of it. We were very fortunate that he was accepted for this charity fund and that it will take care of 100% of his hospital stay!! A total of $51,480!! We paid the Surgeon this week, that was $1500.00 and the Anesthesia was $1,134. So there is a lot of money we still have to pay, just not the exceedingly high Hospital bill! After his followup check up with the doctor, we stopped by the sixth floor to say hello to the nurses and give them a box of candy and a thank you card. One of the nurses that he had had for numerous days said, "Who are you? What room were you in?" I said, "This is Shori, you know, the Japanese boy." But she said, "Oh yeah! 'Mr. Nausea'!!" The CNAs recognized him better than the nursing staff did!

As soon as the drier stops, I'm back to packing. I hate, HATE the new weight restrictions! I can still have two suitcases/bags since I'm flying International but the weight restrictions (50 lbs a piece) mean that I can't take back everything I want to and may have to pay more for extra poundage/baggage! I have an extra box of books and heavy things that I can't add to the suitcases. I think paying for the extra baggage is less than it would cost me to (air) mail a box to Japan! That's a pain too, that the post office doesn't do sea mail to Japan anymore. We may stop by the post office on our way to the airport just to compair the prices. If it's cheaper to mail, my mom can mail the extra box to me later. If it's cheaper to pay the extra baggage charge, then I'll do that and have it with me when I arrive in Osaka. Tak says it's much cooler now in Japan but it's still 10-12 degrees higher than it is here!
I'll take a bus (3-4 hours!) from there to our own City and Tak will pick me up with our van. I just want to go home after that and sleep in my own bed! (with my husband-wink/wink!). I know I'll sleep on the bus and hopefully on the longer flight from San Francisco to Osaka. I feel like I'm coming down with a cold so I'll down some cold meds and hopefully sleep it off during the trip.

Ok, back to packing! Catch you all when I get back to Japan and wake up at 4am with jetlag!!

Back home! Well, 'Island home' anyway.

Well, we are back on the Island now.

After Tak and Masaki left on Monday, I went back to the hospital and to the Island that night. But spending $17.20 a day on a round-trip ferry ticket didn't seem like a good way to spend money! I was going to spend the night at a house my mom owns and rents out (one bedroom is empty), but she gave me the wrong keys! Since I couldn't get in that (rainy) night, I called my Older Brother and they let me crash there for the rest of the week!

When I went to the Hospital on Friday morning, I was surprised to see Shori sitting in the chair with his glasses on!! Until now, his glasses have been in the drawer and he'd been sleeping more than sitting up. He had thrown up once before I left for the night the evening before, so I wasn't expecting him to look so good. He had eaten all of his breakfast and had a full (tho soft) lunch. They took another X-ray of his belly in the early afternoon and when the doctor (first time to see Shori) saw the films she couldn't believe he looked so healthy with a belly full of gas! (There was also a small area of white contrast material left from the first CAT scan he'd had). So, she ordered another X-ray at 5pm and told him to just walk, walk, walk until they came to take him to radiology. If the gas didn't pass or the white area didn't pass they may have had to go back in surgically!)
I guess they were really busy (Friday night and all) but didn't show up until 7:30!! The night doctor looked at the new X-ray and said the gas was moving so he could go home now or in the morning. (Forgot to ask about the contrast material!) We chose 'now' and were discharged by 9:30!
I called my Older Brother and both of us stayed the night there rather than trying to catch the ferry so late at night (it only runs on the hour after 9pm) and waking up my mom and gramma after 10 pm.
It's nice to be back home. Or, at least, at mom's house where she can look after the both of us!

"What I did on my summer vacation" OR "My first trip to the ER"

We went to America on Wednesday. Arrived in Seattle two hours before we had left the day before! (date lines are funny that way) Spent the next day with my Mom and Gramma and then had dinner at my brother's house in Marysville and got to see his first grandchild; Tessa Johana who was born on July 18th.
The next morning we traveled south to Battleground, Wa. where my younger brother lives with his family. Had lunch and started driving with them to Roseburg, Or. where my sister-in-law's parents live. I went in the truck with my brother and his wife and had a good time talking and sharing stories. Their oldest son rode with Tak and my boys and watched 'Spiderman 3' on dynabook. We spent the night in Roseburg and went over to Crater Lake in my brother's pickup truck the next day. He drives semis for UPS and is a good driver. It is a beautiful place and a very nice day trip (from Roseburg).
We spent Sunday morning there and then headed North to Salem where a step-brother lives with his family. He is very tall (6'6") and designed and built his own house to HIS size!! So all the rest of us felt like Alice after she ate the OTHER side of the mushroom!! By the next day it didn't seem so strange to have seven foot door frames and 8-9 feet ceilings! We left there on Monday morning and drove all the way back to Everett and got a Motel room (near the Comm.Coll.) rather than take the last ferry back to Whidbey Island. Oldest Son, Shori had classes the next morning and wasn't feeling well so we got the closes motel we could find near the College. Unfortunately, they put us in a 'smoking' room and it was terrible!!! Our clothes all smelled bad the next morning! It even seemed like the bathroom was the worse and that you were washing in cigarette smell instead of water when taking a shower! Yuck!
Tuesday we drove back to Seattle to have lunch with some S.A. friends of ours who take care of Shori and give him rides to church when he attends the Corps in Seattle.

Shori had come with us as we traveled south from Thursday to Tuesday evening even tho he missed one or two classes on Monday. He started complaining about his stomach (overall) hurting some on Sunday/Monday. When we got back to my mom's on Tuesday evening he had a fever of 100.8 and went straight to bed without eating. During the night he was still in pain. By morning he was 'guarding' and the pain had settled in his right side. We took him across the ferry to Everett and to the ER there. That evening, after having a CAT scan, they took out his appendix which had burst. (the Surgeon said 'perforated'-- I thought that meant 'a hole', but the doctor the next morning said 'it had ruptured'-- wish they all spoke the same language!).
He was scheduled to start clear fluids by the next day and possibly be discharged by afternoon, but had a very high fever and was throwing up a lot. They did another CAT scan on Wednesday or Thursday (the days are melting together here) and put in an NG tube (down the nose and into the stomach) to pump out whatever was making him throw up. The CAT scan showed that he had a "stoppage"/"blockage" in his small intestine that wasn't letting much get by. The next day they said it was leftover inflammation from the appendix area and 'should' clear up with antibiotics, etc.
Well, he's still in the hospital and still not eating anything. He got the NG tube out the following day but still has some nausea. He doesn't eat or drink anything so he's always just throwing up the green stomach bile. I think he's kind of afraid to eat because he thinks he'll throw it all up afterwards. The antibiotics make him nauseated and he says even his spit tastes bad, so he's spitting it out rather than swallowing. We were talking about all his favorite Japanese food/dishes today and he said he could feel his stomach moving a little. I try to give him a goal of being able to come home soon but....
I also think that he's having some depression. The day he was supposed to take his final exams (summer quarter) was the day after surgery!! We notified his teachers and asked for a "make-up" date for the exams. Hopefully, he'll feel like taking the exams once he's feeling better. I don't want him to throw away a year of school just because he missed the last test by being in the hospital!!

He/we don't have any insurance for all of this either!! The hospital has some kind of Charity Fund for people without insurance that will probably cover 80-90 percent of the bills. I think he may have a little something thru the Community College just by being a student, but I'll have to check on that. We were overwhelmed by the expected cost of having him in the hospital for just a few days! I don't know HOW we'll be able to handle him being there a WEEK!!

(Now about my Family.)
My older and younger brothers have been discussing Oldest Son's continuing to live with my (72 y/o) mother and (92 y/o) grandmother. They feel that it's too much to ask the older ladies to do. Especially my mom, since she has to take care of gramma first and isn't in the best of health herself. So they are asking me to find Shori some where else to live....! He is really homesick and would like to return to Japan but....! There's nothing there for him, really. He's chosen this path and needs encouragement to continue even when he feels lonely not 'You need to help out more or find somewhere else to live!' (My mom is not saying any of this but he gets it from gramma and others).

(And about our Travels)
Tak and Masaki left this morning to return to Japan. I could get my ticket extended so I'm here until the first week of September. Tak had to get back to work and Mas has a special music thing at school.
I went with them to the airport and after a hassle getting them checked-in they were told that the flight to SanFran was delayed because of weather (I guess SanFran had a lot of lightening this morning!!) Anyway, to make this looooong post a little shorter, they missed their flight to Osaka from S.F. and have to stay the night! They'll get a flight in the morning but it will be to Tokyo and not Osaka! (twice as far from home) and take another flight from there or the bullet train.
Tak will miss a couple important days from work and Mas. may miss the first time he gets to actually PLAY in the school band!! Tak said Mas. is mad about it so he's going to take him down to Fisherman's Wharf for some crab! He has a phone number for some friends of ours in S.F., but might not want to bother them.  
The driving part of our trip was great and the weather has been perfect. It was fortunate that we got to do that during the first part of our vacation since the last week was spent in or around the hospital! But we did get a side trip to Seattle's Pike Street Market with Mas. so he wouldn't be bored with hanging around the hospital all the time. And some shopping too!
Well, I guess that's most of it. I've been up since 4am this morning taking them to the airport and checking in (which is another story/rant altogether and needs a clearer head to write down!). I'll be at the hospital again tomorrow morning so I've got to get some sleep. Hope this extended rambling makes sense. Just wanted to let you all know what's going on. 'Nite.

Packing

Finished packing today and Tak took the suitcases (4) to the nearby shipping company to be shipped to the airport. Doing this makes getting to the airport that much easier. The shipping company is on the same floor as the check in counters and when you tell them which airlines you are flying with, they make sure the bags are at the storage area closest to your airline's counter!

We will be leaving here early on Wednesday and riding with the Leaders from our church. They are going to Osaka on that day as well and offered to give us a lift. Much nicer than being in a bus for three hours and getting to the airport hours and hours ahead of time because the bus only runs a couple times a day!

Most of our suitcases have things for the Oldest Son. He is still feeling a bit homesick at times. He has a few more classes to finish up this month and then he's free ....until NEXT quarter! I guess his classes are really early in the morning (7:30) and later in the afternoon (12:00-1:00) with nothing much in between to do! Tak has downloaded some DVD's for him and bought him a bunch of stuff for his computer.

We've been buring up the phonelines to my family these last few days too. Tak had not been able to come up with any solid plans for our travels (he KNOWS how many miles it is to drive from point A to point B. But doesn't know how many HOURS it takes a family of four to get from point A to point B!) So we sat down and made out a schedule.... and THEN found out that Oldest Son/Shori still has classes that week!! So we re-arranged everything again and tried contacting all of our family and friends to let them know of the change in plans! There are now a few places we can't make it to and a few family members that we won't be able to see. But I guess that's just too bad! Whenever we work so hard at trying to see as many people as we can and someone gets left out, I always think that they could 'try' coming to Japan one of these years!! Sure would have left us some money in savings if they had!!

Well, I'm tired. Time to go to bed and not think about the difference in Time Zones that we'll have to get used to as well as driving from here to there and the price of gasoline and.... and... and good night.

Preparations

The weather continues to be Hot and Humid. We've had a couple of thunder storms, mostly in the evening, some with rain but mostly without. We can't stand outside (on the terrace) and look at all the lightening bolts like we could at the apartment. But Mas and I went outside during the first one and walked around our house untill we came to a place with fewer trees and looked in the general direction that the storm was coming from. We got to see a couple big, straight-down-to-the-ground bolts and a lot of 'cloud-to-cloud' flashes. It was great. Then it rained and every thing just got muggier!

I'm getting things ready for our trip to America starting next week! Searched out a lot of hotels along our driving travels routes. Why is it that they have one price for two people in one room and a totally different price for FOUR people in the same size room?! (Adverages out to $10-20 more for 'plus 2' people) Driving with the boys I figure we'd get two beds and they could 'rock/paper/scissors' for who gets the bed and who gets a sleeping bag on the floor or couch. We'd only be staying one night in all locations and weekdays too! Of course, there is also our last night where we normally get a room near the airport so as to be there 'two hours before flight time' (which is like 5 AM!) We'll probably get one of the airports I've stayed in before which are within 3 miles of the airport and have shuttle service in the morning.

One nice thing to look forward to is that the Pacific Northwest is about 10-20 degrees cooler than here! But, that also means that I'll be packing long sleeved shirts, sweaters and light jackets instead of the tanktops, T-shirts and shorts that we are wearing here now. But I'm still going to pack swimming suits. Hey, if it's too cold and we can't swim in the lake (grandmother lives on waterfront property), some of the hotels I was looking at have pools!

I did make an order to LandsEnd http://www.landsend.com/cd/frontdoor (I love their clothes and colors) of some short and long sleeved tops so I don't have to pack as much for myself. And I was thinking about making an order of LUSH http://usa.lush.com/cgi-bin/lushdb products too. A whole bunch of their 'retro' products (older recipes brought back for the summer) are only available online. Tho, I do want to check out one (or two!) of the US shops since they sell different things than they do here in Japan.

Ok, so I'm off now to 'Fabreeze' the inside of the suitcases and air them out some before I start packing them this weekend.

See you once more before I leave or soon after our return in mid-August!