Another month...we haven't seen Okaasan.
My area of Japan is currently in our 2nd State of Emergency, much stricter this time with department stores and many restaurants closed. Schools closed. New case numbers in the double digits and scary clusters in care homes and hospitals.
Hospitals are such bad places to be at the moment.
The main hospital for cancer treatment in Sapporo has an outbreak of cases...care homes...call center...it's "only" 25-33 new cases a day in an area of Japan with 5 million people...but when they said on the local news that there are only 30 special beds left for isolation in this region...the situation looks bad.
One of my students has to go into hospital for a gyno operation this month. Should only be there a week..but with all the news about infections in theses places which we usually think of as safe... Last month a famous Japanese actress died of Covid-19. She'd had breast cancer operation in January, and was back home recovering - must of felt glad to have come thru the cancer scare....and then in March got Covid19. Awful.
So, we just sit tight and hope that the staff in Okaasan's care home are doing all the right things. NOT going to parties with friends and their sports gym (yes, some of THOSE are still open!)...hoping that they won't bring the virus into the building with 10 floors of elderly people.
When the phone goes, I dread that it's going to be "that" call, the care home staff telling us she isn't so well....and all that will lead to.
I'm also a little disappointed that they haven't set up some way families can interact/see their elderly - after weeks and weeks of this situation. A computer screen...a plastic sheet wall between us - just 5 minutes of waving and shouting"hi!".
The only reassurance is that Okaasan almost certainly doesn't know we haven't seen her in 10 weeks...
Our life is quiet and ongoing. My mood goes up and down.
Mainly ok...specially now there is good weather and cherry blossoms. Yesterday we did bbq in the garden....just the two of us.
I have mainly online classes now. Easy to do with private classes for an adult. But this kind of communication is more intense and after a few hours I am exhausted. But, glad for the work. The Japanese government will pay everyone about $900 as an emergency support payment....which will help.
I hope where you are has some signs of a return to some kind of normal?
Allowed outside yet? Can go in a car beyond 50 km? Allowed to eat out?
It's strange the things you really miss - the incidental things.
We've done two take out meals now - one a week. SO AMAZING to have food we didn't plan, shop and cook ourselves.
We've walked miles and miles in the local streets...round and round residential areas...keeping away from people by walking in the middle of the street, veering around a guy washing his car...a woman and her dog...
I guess we won't go back to the carefree times of Before Coronavirus...the big events..the travel...for age and ages...
Ha. Sorry. I'm depressing myself reading this. We need an uplifting ending.
Here is a wonderful short video of the cherry blossoms in my part of Japan. It was made by Hokkaido Nature Tours, the tour company I work for (will I ever work as a guide again????)...just lovely and soothing....
enjoy! And stay safe and happy.
Hope MIL is doing ok. It has to be hard not to see her. In Kentucky we are still staying home. My school has been closed since March 16th. All lessons our done by Zoom, or Google. The children have been good about coming to daily meeting and checking in. Of course I have some that are going the extra mile with lessons and others not so much. Truth it's hard! I'm not sure when anything like normal will happen. Nothing open but grocery, drugstore and appliance. I can't get excited about visitng my kids in Kagoshima at Christmas. Nothing is for sure. Ok, enough downer stuff. Take care and stay safe.
ReplyDeleteLaura
It is really hard. We're in the same boat with Andrew's mother in a care home, but Andrew has bought an Amazon Echo Show and a pocket wifi for it to work off, and got the staff to set them up in her room so he can talk to her that way. It doesn't need her to pick up the phone (which she can't manage any more) - he uses the Drop In on the Alexa phone app to make video calls directly to the device. Much better than nothing.
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