Emergency

...not on to the next project...

I spent about 8 hours at the hospital yesterday. And my mom is back in again. Life changes quickly...

Normal morning. The rest of the family went off to softball tournament. I did laundry and even got Grandma up for a bit so that I could change sheets and her pajamas etc. At 1:30 though she said she was feeling sick and I accosted Marcy as she drove in the driveway and we were in the emergency room by 2:00.

It's hard to tell what's going on and it's hard to know what to do... Grandma does NOT want to go to the hospital! Are we jumping the gun? Should we wait and see if she gets worse? What is worse? Even with the doctor firing questions at us we were sort of at a loss.

"When did she start getting nauseous?" "1:00? But she's had episodes for years."

"Does she get dizzy? Is she unsteady? Since when?" "Oh, she's always unsteady..."

"So why did you bring her in?" "Because we thought her blood pressure might be high? Because the last time she was brought in she had had a heart attack... Same symptoms."

More emergency room tests. More not so great results. Yep. She'd better be admitted. That makes Grandma sad. She does not want to be there. She does not want us to leave.

Marcy and I wait in the hallway while they move Mother from one bed to another and hook her back up to all their machines. I stand there thinking maybe we ought to call Mother's pastor... No that is really jumping the gun.

"Pastor Andrea?"

Marcy looks down the hall and there is Mother's pastor on her way back from visiting her own mother who is hospitalized! Pastor Andrea comes in and Mother looks up and says,

"Oh my! You are so beautiful!"

"Oh Grace, you ARE sick!"

Gives us all a laugh. (Pastor Andrea IS lovely but she didn't expect the genuine, spontaneous compliment at that particular moment.)

Prayers and a hand squeeze and I think God has sent us a small miracle.

"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,

miracles that cannot be counted."

Job 5:9

Pillow cases

I have set up a sewing area in my mother's living room. Last summer I got Marcy involved with making pillow cases. She spent much of the latter part of 2008 making pillow cases for Christmas presents and she decided that she wanted to make pillow cases for my niece's softball team as an end of the year present. They found the fabric they liked (softballs!) and some matching border fabric and Marcy went to town cutting out pieces (no roller cutter! Yuck!) and getting 16 pillow cases ready for assembly... Just in time for me to sew them! (Marcy was planning to sew them herself but I conveniently came along early!)

Great system, and as my mother watched over the whole process, "What are you making? Why are you making those? How many are you making? Can I help? (We gave her manicure scissors and asked her to cut off thread tails) Marcy ironed and I flag sewed. Within two hours we had our 16 pillow cases made!

Next step. Marcy wanted the pillow cases embroidered with the softball team's names and numbers and last night we found a man at a street fair that would do it for us very cheaply. Marcy tested him out by getting her own name embroidered on one pillow case (she's #1!) and we will take all the rest of the pillow cases to him later this week.

Mom's still saying "What are those? Who made them? How many did you make? Oh, they're so beautiful!"

Makes us feel proud!

On to the next project!

Family

Takumi showed up last night! He walked in the door and I didn't recognize him! How terrible is that?! I only saw him last July. He looks taller, though he says he isn't. He looks thinner. No, he says. He has longer hair, he smiles a lot. He says "Maybe I've changed because I'm old." Twenty-four is not old but to him it is. Marcy fed him oatmeal cookies and sashimi (what a combination!) and we chatted with Grandma and he tweaked my computer a bit before we turned in for the night.

Grandma (actually my mother, but we all call her Grandma these days) is holding her own. I don't like to leave her but Marcy and Keion seem to think life should go on as normal which is probably a healthier way of living. There are softball practices that need to be attended and school field trips that need to be chaperoned. Marcy tempts me with trips to Sam's club and Jo Anns and Starbucks. We can't be hovering over Grandma all the time! I am edgy when I am with her (what if she can't make it to the bathroom, what if she starts feeling sick again) and I am edgy when I am away (what if she calls and no one is there, what if she tries to get up alone and falls).

The times when my mother looks the happiest is when she has the dogs with her. She is so overjoyed when they join her on her bed or in her chair and she seems so tickled to think that they don't want to be parted from her. She holds and pets and coos at them and they in turn look at her with liquid adoring eyes. It is a wonderful combination and I know all is well when she is talking to the dogs or patting one absentmindedly.

Grandma used to have a cat but it disappeared sometime last year and Marcy says she has enough to do without looking after another animal. I wish my mother could enjoy one of my cats... I do have enough to spare.... At least 5 times a day Grandma will ask me how many cats I have.

"Five. I have one dog and five cats."

"FIVE!!! How on earth did you ever get five! That's too many!"

and I feel chagrined and scolded each and every time she asks.

Hospitals

I forgot to take my camera with me yesterday when we took Grandma to the doctors. Rats. The doctor's office is really so different from in Japan that it would have been nice to get a picture to show my Japanese friends but I think we have another appointment scheduled in a few weeks so I'll have another chance.

Some things I notice. Everyone is cheerful and takes their time. You have to with Grandma wobbling along with her walker. Nurses smile and say "Nice to see you again" even when they are on their way to help another patient. People joke around. The doctor is smiley and warm and never sits down. So, what is different?

In Japan for one, the waiting rooms are usually not decorated. Mostly linoleum and benches lined up facing in one direction. Usually we visit either the general hospital (where rotating doctors see outpatients) or private hospitals which can be nice but means you get passed around if you need to see another doctor. I think that it is the dream of most Japanese doctors to someday own their own private hospital because the general ones don't have a lot of warmth to them.

There usually isn't an appointment system in Japanese hospitals or if there is one at all it is a "come on this day" system, not at a specific time. So patients end up waiting hours and hours before the doctor can see them. There is an outer waiting room and an inner waiting room which is divided from the examining room by curtains. You get called to go through the curtains to go talk to the doctor. I remember when I was pregnant with one of my kids thinking that everyone in the inner waiting room knew what the doctor was telling me except ME! They could hear and understand him and I could only hear but didn't understand much at all!

There is only one examination room in Japanese doctors offices (even eye doctors, dentists etc.) and the patients move from one station to another rather than the doctor. He sits at his desk and asks questions and reads what the nurses have charted up and occasionally will stand to look at you or check out whatever needs to be checked, but he rarely leaves his marked off little area. This is economical in some ways because whereas each examining room has to be equipped with machines and supplies in the American clinics, in Japan at least equipment costs I would assume, are less.

I also noticed yesterday that the very nice lab technician that was taking blood had numerous tattoos on his body. That would never go in Japan! Tattoos are still no-nos and in the numerous hot spring spas that we visit there are often signs posted saying no tattoos allowed. That seems discriminatory to me but it is the Japanese thinking that tattoos are connected with the Mafia.

The very nice lab technician yesterday was so gentle and kind to my mother checking out one arm and saying "Hmm. Decided to leave your veins home today?" and then finally doing a "poking" job on the other. I noticed his tattooed finger when he was looking for a vein. A further look at his crewcut head revealed that he had an intricate tattoo on his scalp too and I discovered another one on the back of his neck as he very tenderly bandaged up Grandma's arm. Just interesting to me because one tattoo in Japan and I'm sure the person would be banished from the ordinary work force.

Airport stories

Day one and not much to report on. I am suffering from jet lag!! I usually don't but last night I couldn't sleep so stayed up reading a book until the wee hours and then slept in til 11:00 today! Unheard of! That may be why there isn't much to report on.

How about an airport story? From long ago.

When Takumi was in jr. high I think, Takumi, Leiya and I came to visit the States not long after 9/11. Security was high at the Tokyo airport and there were extra baggage checks all along the way. We passed through the first x-ray machine. We passed through the second x-ray machine. When we got to the boarding area there was even a manual check through our carry on baggage. No problem. Takumi and Leiya and I sat down to wait until we were called for boarding.

Leiya pawed around her backpack looking for colored pencils or something to kill the time with when she suddenly pulled an ice pick out of her bag and said, "What's this?"

I about fell out of my chair! I have no idea where an ice pick could have come from. I shushed Leiya and stuffed the ice pick back into the backpack furiously whispering accusations at Takumi all the while.

"This was YOUR backpack. What's an ice pick doing in there?"

Takumi denied any knowlege of the ice pick and we held a hurried conversation about what to do. I could envision us confessing to the security personel and pulling out the ice pick and all three of us being hauled away for questioning. We'd already made it through three security checks... Let's just get on the plane and get through the LA airport and home.

I have no idea if that was a smart move or not. For the next 10 hours I think all of us sat stiffly in our seats wondering what was going to happen if anyone discovered us with an ice pick on the airplane. No one did and we made it safely out of the airport and into my brother's waiting car. Before we even got home Leiya handed the offending weapon to my brother who put it in his tool chest where I doubt that it has ever seen the light of day since.

I still wonder how and why the ice pick got into Leiya's backpack and have nagging doubts about the airport security system...

Nursing

Well, I'm in California! Easy trip.

And Grandma is out of the hospital so I kind of wonder why I'm here. I mean one day I get a call that Grandma is in intensive care, and I fly here and I find she's left the hospital already! Certainly not the way things would go in Japan! If one gets put in the hospital they usually stay a couple weeks or a month or two. I remember telling my mother when I first came to Japan that if I ever ended up in the hospital she wasn't to think I was on my death bed just because I was in for a couple months, that's just the way it is done in Japan.

Marcy didn't tell Grandma that I was flying in early and wanted to surprise her. Is a surprise such a good idea for someone her age who isn't in such great health? But Marcy felt an extra jolt would perk things up a bit so when we trooped into Grandma's bedroom Marcy says,

"Grandma~~ Look at the new cleaning lady I picked up for you."

Grandma took one look at me looked back at Marcy and said,

"Am I awake?"

It has been nice having the computer and all the pictures in it with the wide screen so that Grandma's failing eyesight can see them. We've gone through quite a few of the picture folders in here and always she wants to stop and look at the kitties. That's nice.

Mostly Grandma sleeps. And she needs help to get up, to move from bed to bathroom. To eat. She doesn't want to be left alone so I stay sitting beside her and I took a nap on the floor in the next room. Even that panics her to think that she is alone. I can see how Marcy will be very happy to have me take over nursing duties but I don't know how things are going to go once I have to leave again. No, Tanya, that is thinking way too far ahead. You just got here.

Some humor... I helped Grandma to the bathroom with the use of the walker and making sure her legs held her. She wobbles from side to side and sometimes falls backwards.

"I don't know how I can get so wobbly so suddenly like this. I feel like an old woman."

"Um... You ARE an old woman at 87."

"Am I 87? No wonder I feel like I am 80!"

"If you feel like you are 80 then you are doing good. That's 7 years younger than you really are!"

We'll see what the first night brings and hope we can slip into a routine.

"Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed,

for His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:22-23

Last minute things

Doing last minute things around here. Tetsu holds down the fort pretty well whenever I'm gone so I don't have to do extra cleaning or shopping or cooking. I think he is going to live on noodles and take out stuff while he goes back to single life. He's great at cleaning but not so hot in the cooking department. I have a feeling I'm going to come back to high levels of frustration for the cats and Choco. They certainly won't get the attention I give them.

I haven't shown any hand craft pictures in a couple of days have I? I finished the applique on my Great Aussie quilt. If I were going to be around I'd put a border on this and sandwich it for machine quilting but this is going on the shelf.

I quilted for two weeks on the bazaar quilt. Forgot to take any pictures of that and yesterday passed it on to Mrs. Furui.

Finished the embroidery on the Round Robin. I don't think the recipient visits my blog so this is what I did. It was kind of fun. I found the pattern at this link and if I ever do embroidery I'd like to visit here again.

I have been considering taking my feathered star quilt to the States to quilt there... but it is so big. And I never have enough space in my luggage on my way back to Japan anyway. Why would I want to add a quilt to the luggage? But if I'm going to have a lot of sitting around time... And hot! Do I want to be quilting in California heat? No, I guess I do not. I'll have to find something else to keep me busy.

Today's afternoon includes packing, visiting Tetsu's mom and doing a little shopping. Then off bright and early tomorrow morning.

Next post from the States!