Good bye little furball

 We've lost a furry family member. One of our dear cats has died.

It seems strange to report it here, on a very...VERY occasional blog about shared life of a Japanese lady and a foreign daughter-in-law. 

But the puss cat was one of our family. I know some old friends and old students read this blog, so it's a way to share the news.

Yesterday afternoon our cancer kitty lost the fight with the disease that was first diagnosed only in December. Just 4 months ago he was a fat, over-eating ball of cat joyfulness, when I first took him to the vets a little concerned about yet more fat "lumps" in his neck.

Chemo treatments, CT scans, radiotherapy...visits to our vets...the university teaching animal hospital...even another vet that offered slightly alternative Vitamin C serum shots...for him and for us it's been an increasingly sad winter - all the ups and downs of this disease.

Towards the end Dear Son and I were slightly at odds about how "the end" was going to be. I was ready to accept the end and ask the vet to ease the suffering about a week ago. Dear Son wanted to try the Vitamin C treatment he'd read about online. I agreed, grudgingly. But understanding he needed one-more-try.

That failed to have any impact. By midweek I was sleeping on the living room floor. Furball had stopped eating.

Our own vet wasn't keen to step in and put Furball to sleep earlier this week - when he was still able to stagger to the water bowl and into my futon. It was a bit frustrating for me, but not a surprise - many vets in Japan are not supportive of pet euthanizing until there is clear suffering.

But when he'd stopped reaching the water bowl himself, they set us up with subcutaneous injection shot kit. We did this for our old cat and his failing kidneys - years ago back at the start of this blog - so it was doable.

Toilet accidents. No food. Shots of water to ease dehydration, then the real physical signs of "end". Yesterday we took him to the vet and let him pass on to the great grassy field of cat heaven.

Very hard. Our home is full of memories of him. His brother has seen the body twice - looked, sniffed and turned away. He is a bit needy and clingy. We are exhausted and sad. Tonight a mobile cremation service will come and do the cremation in our parking space. And we'll keep Furball's ashes to scatter when the snows have melted and the house is surrounded by the wild grassy areas he loved.

5 days now to comfort eachother. 5 days for me to get my head ready for a trip to England. I haven't travelled outside Japan for 5 years? With all of this I haven't time to think of it. But now I must.

Thankyou Furball for the love of 13 years. He often sat in my arms here at the computer.

Everywhere there are memories of you.

Hoping for a downgrade

 Another month.

Another year.

Another 10 mins waving at Okaasan thru a computer screen.

She was on her side, face slightly swollen, the tubes in place, blinking at the screen. When the nurse moved her face tubes Okaasan moaned...a cheerful doctor told us all is well...as well as it can be.

The Japanese government is getting detailed about downgrading Covid to seasonal flu level this April or May, and along with that (we hope!) many things in life could change. Mask wearing outside should become more the norm, events will be at full capacity, more hospitals can treat Covid-like symptoms.

And care homes and hospitals? Will they open up for family visits?

It will, of course, be totally up to the facility management and my guess is that they won't. They'll leave current systems in place thru May and June...and IF things look ok they may consider relaxing visiting rules in the summer? Will we get to see Okaasan this summer?

If I was betting. I'd say no.

In other news: I am going to the UK for the first time in 5 or 6 years. End of March I'm flying for hours and hours to avoid Russia, and will blow a lot of my savings on air tickets and care rental. But it will be good to eat carrot cake, cheese, roast meat...and see friends again.

The cat is still fighting the lymph cancer. 5 lots of chemo now. He's lost weight and is subdued. But we try to make his days happy, somehow. It's been a crazy cold winter - minus 12 here in the city at night and electricity bills have gone up by 30%. But the cancer kitty must be warm and comfortable. More savings gone.

onwards.....

Ending 2022...as we started...

 So this is Christmas

And what have you done?
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

(John Lennon

So This Is Christmas)

So This Is Christmas

Love this song. Poignant. Sad. Hopeful. Realistic.

Well, 2022 - for many of us the first ordinary Christmas after the Pandemic. People could travel again and meet family and friends. Groups were ok, international and domestic travel was ok.

In Japan we are all still wearing masks, and restaurants and shops still have plastic barriers on tables and at cash registers. In Hokkaido daily new infections are about 6,000, with a shockingly high death rate...yesterday 34 people died.

The last figure is confusing though. This is people who died BECAUSE of Covid, or WITH Covid. The media doesn't tell us. But one of my students lost her elderly aunt a month or two, the old lady had a heart attack in her room at the care home. And then the autopsy revealed she had Covid, and the family couldn't have the body for funeral rites - it was quickly cremated.

So, I keep wondering - was HER death included in that day's Covid Deaths on the news? She was a very old woman with a heart condition, so her death isn't that surprising. It may have been as an indirect result of the virus, but maybe not.

Anyway. The virus is still zapping around here as we all wrap up work for another year and enjoy a week of holiday between calendar changes. And Japan is starting to get nervous about millions of Chinese people who are likely to grab the chance and start international travel again, following this week's government announcement. We have the big snow festivals here in early February, which usually attract thousand of international visitors.

There's a slight feeling of deja vu - 3 years ago there was news of a virus spreading in China, and a kind of relief that the big tour groups from China didn't come to the Snow Festival as something called a "lockdown" began. 3 years on though, we do have vaccines.

But old people still locked away in care homes, unable to meet their family.

The Christmas card for Okaasan.

I motivated Dear Son. Found the card. We signed it. He delivered it to the care home.

We hope the nurses showed it to her with bright, happy voices. We hope she understood what it is.

We haven't met her since December 2021.

Our December has been a bit eventful.

My ongoing knee problems prevented any skiing or snowshoeing. But the knee is getting stronger, and I can do ordinary life...apart from walking more than about 1km. So, I've done a lot of reading, TV and online stuff.

Eventful was one of the cats. The fatty lumps around his neck turned out to be cancerous tumors in his lymph glands. Last year similar lumps were fatty lumps of an overweight, middle aged animal. This time they weren't.

Lots of stressy talks with our vet and an introduction to the expert vet at the big regional veterinarian teaching hospital across town. An operation was ruled out because the cancer was in several positions around the neck. Last week he started chemo and steroids.

The strange thing is that he is actually super fine thru all this. Eating, pooping, chasing his brother up the stairs. Noisy.

And after only two chemo shots the neck lumps have vanished. We go back to the vets for Round 3 today. He is 13 years old, and we hope he'll live into another summer of grass and flowers. I also hope my savings for old age won't all disappear into my vet's bank account. Pet Insurance has a $100 a day price cap.

What else?

Oh, yeah. Booked air tickets for England!! Back to the old country for the first time in 5 years. End of March...at HUGELY expensive cost. But now, thanks to Putin's war and longer flight routes, the oil prices etc etc. Also it's direct  flights Tokyo/Heathrow. I can't do a long transit anymore. Just want to get there. The direct flight time is already over 15 hours!!!

So. This was Christmas 2022.

I'm home now for the next week. Eating too much chocolate and watching Netflix. Meeting a few friends. Prepping my accounts for February and the accountant. Monitoring the cat. Doing my leg exercises.

Happy Holidays to you. Let's hope 2023 brings joy to more people.

AND another online visit...

 Yup.

Still doing the waving and talking extra loud in front of a screen - held by a double masked staffer at Okaasan's care home.

Gosh, I didn't even post in October. Did we have an online meeting at all? I don't remember.

Earlier this afternoon we had 10 mins again, which is mainly us talking to the nurse and Okaasan blinking a little with closed eyes as she is in her bed. I'm guessing the online visits will continue thru the winter now and well into next year.

New infection numbers have just shot up in this cold part of north Japan, as we all close windows and socialize inside. This region tops the nightly stats on the TV news. My students who work at a local hospital say it's all rampant again - thru the staff and patients - and actually deaths with Covid are up too.

Of course it's not necessarily deaths FROM Covid, but probably a reflection that so many people have got it anyway. One student said her 90 year old aunt dropped dead from a heart attack in her care home, but when they did an autopsy it was discovered she also had Covid and so the body wasn't released to the family for the usual funeral arrangements. That's awful, and so meaningless - the family could at least of had a viewing from behind screens and said their farewells. 

It was straight from autopsy to cremation.

Okaasan today? Looked ok, I guess. Not much I can say. The same as she always looks. We just hope she hears friendly, bright voices around her a lot and enjoys the bedside massages and body moving. Bathtime.

Sorry about silence in October. I've been very preoccupied with my own injury - the knee all over again, and trying to get back some mobility. The good news is that the chiro is a wonderful guy and I feel so glad I am going to him.

We've got me able to stand and do household things like cooking and washing up. I can garden for about 20 mins. I can ride my bike short local distances. This week I am teaching special classes at a local company, and with the help of a high stool and taping - I think I can do it.

Let's end on a happy note. I've done a lot of family history research online to use up time sitting down....and in particular exchanged fun e mails with people living in a small village near Cambridge - where my maternal grand-ma came from! Discovering that she was probably illegitimate, but taken on by the good man her mum married when she was six years old.

Here she is, in the front row at school and later in the early 1900s in England!!