Yukky Colonoscopee comparisions

Well the time came for me to go get that famous camera forced up the wrong way job!   The city had found a bit of blood in my last poop test and so I had to go the inspection route.  First I went to our local specialized clinic.  He gave me an appointment and instuctions to eat no bean products and nothing after 8 p.m. the day before.  Then that night to take a medicine and next morning to put a package powdery stuff in 2 liters of water and drink (which would result in large scale pooping)before 11 and come into the office by noon.  Well, then in the office they gave me a shot and soon the long cord with the camera was inserted.  Actually I can't say there was any pain.  However the result was that he found some polyp that he couldn't take out in his clinic so refered me to go to another large hospital for this treatment.  Right after his treatment the nurse took me to a lovely resting room with a comfortable reclining chair and put a blanket over me and told me to rest for one hour, after which I felt fine and could go home.  The Chiba University Hospital where I then went looked at his photos and decided they had to do their own.  So the process was repeated but not so nicely.  They made me buy the day before the camera meal box.  You can see it below.  It was divided into 4 boxes with food for 4 meals.  The breakfast was absolutely ghastly...wet rice with very strong fish flavor and miso soup.  I just gave it to the cat.  Lunch time was another wet rice but that was passable with a soy sauce flavor.  Dinner was a corn soup which was also okay and only the snack was kind of good...chocolate cookie and orange juice.  Next morning I had to be in the hospital where I was ushered into a waiting room with hard chairs and one tv with about 15 other victims.  We were each given a 2 liter jug and a paper cup and told to down it before 11.  This stuff  so tasted so much worse than the private clinics.  Managed to get it down and then had another long wait in turn to get into the curtained off section where the camera would be inserted.  The biggest difference in treatment was when the procedure was finished.  Instead of a nice hour in a reclining soft chair, I was given my papers and told to go down and pay and go home!  My stomache(rather guts) was churning from the air they had pumped in and nerves were shot.  But with me being in no danger of death, they wanted me out.  After waiting to pay and then the bus and train ride home, I was only fit to lie down and complain to my husband that NO WAY was I going to do anything for a couple of hours.  After an hour or two I was back to normal.  I asked my doctor son about the difference in treatment and he said that a private clinic has to treat you so kindly or they will lose you to another clinic and go bankrupt, where a University Hospital has too many patients anyway and could care less if you chose them or not. Besides when the procedure gets complicated you must go there! 

 This Thursday I went in for the results of their photos (that doctor is very nice and kind but so busy) and he said it looks like they can remove the polyps with the scope treatment but if not they will do it by surgery and I would need to be in the hospital about a week.  However since there are so many much more serious cases than mine, I will just be on the waiting list and they will call and tell me when to check in.  The check-in nurse gave us a bunch of pamplets (of course all in Japanese) for my husband to read and tell me about their rules.  Several years ago I was in that hospital for over a week and really enjoyed it.  This time?  Well, after it is all over I'll post again!

Crash landing

Above is another penquin and below is Jonathan at the top of the hill.  On our last ride up the 4 man chair before coming down Andy was thinking to take the big jump, but we all decided NO on the last run it is best to take it easy or it might be the Last RUn.  Anyway coming down, Andy led, Jon followed and Jack and I skied behind watching the guys go over the small jumps.  Almost at the bottom, we watched Andy go over the last two little jumps and then head down the hill, Jonathan went over those two and then headed off to the right right to the big jump!  Jack and I watched him go up, sail out and then we didn't see the landing as the jump was too high for our vision.  Andy below saw him land on his shoulder.  We all skied over to him and he lay in the snow in shock.  He was dissoriented for awhile but nothing was broken.  In the lodge the ski patrol checked his shoulder mussles and thought he was lucky as it seemed his shoulder was close to being dislocated.  It has been over 4 days since the flight without a parachute, and he is still sore, but seems better every day now.

Omachi Hot Spring

Jon, Jack, and Andy waiting for 5:30 when we could start skiing.  We could ski for  1,000 yen from 5:30 to 9:00, but we were too cold with too many miles to drive home to stay that long.
Jon here is walking toward us.  Notice the guy in the brown one-piece snowboard suit in the background.  I just can't get over how those guys can do anything when they have legs the length of penquins because of their low slung suits.
The day skiers were stopped from skiing at 4:30 and then for one hour the hill was repacked for the nighters.  The whole hill was not open just the nice long lower run.
Andy is getting our skis and snowboards down so we'll be ready at 5:30
I wanted to get a shot of the hill while light enough to see!

Post-Onsen

The view from the rest area where we chose to spend some time after the hotspring.  Below is Jack trying out the massage chair.
Andy decided to snooze on the floor and Jon and Jack were just resting.  We wished we'd brought along some games to play.
My cousin's daughter Kata and her husband Josh are so fond of the many flavors of KitKats.  Last summer I took them some new flavors.  Here were some other new ones--apple and spicy pepper.  But since I won't be seeing them for maybe another 2 years I didn't buy them.  Also in this resort area they were beyond what  I thought was a reasonable price.

Onsen continued

Through the window in the hall going to the onsen I saw this perfect cannibal pot!  My father was always wanting to find one.  My imagination says this used to be a personal bath for someone and now just a decoration, but cannibals would have loved to have had this for their cooking.
A wall sketching of how the onsens were years ago.
We had the place pretty much to ourselves since we chose to go at noon instead of after skiing in the evening when it would be crowded.
The waiting area between the males and females where we can wait for the slow pokes.

Omachi Hot Spring

Yesterday we returned from a one day trip to Omachi, Nagano.  In this blog I'll discribe our onsen (hot spring) time.  Above is this cute little girl in the changing room who was willing to pose.  I didn't ask or take any photos of nudes except myself which I was careful to keep decent.
Above you can see the fence separating the males from females.  I was tempted to make some snowballs and pitch over to see if my men on the otherside would respond.  Kind of lonely when I'm the only female in our group.
One of the outside pools was closed.  I was kind of nervous as I figured people in that house in the distance with binoculars could be peeking toms.
Outside looking in and inside looking out!

Eyes for only you!

Katsura's friends who visited us and went to the German Village illumination with us sent us this photo.  I thought it was precious that Nami and I were caught on camera looking at each other with those moon eyes!

I may not pot again for a few days as my schedule this week is very full.  Tomorrow I go to Shinagawa for an interview and help with teaching a new class for them.  Luckily the class will not be there but right here in my own hometown.

Remembering

Here are some more photos that I forgot to post in sequence.  Above is Nami getting this Hello Kitty blanket from Ojiisan for her Christmas present.  
She enjoys attention and here her dad and great grandpa are giving her lots.  Below her grammy (that is me) is giving her some soft cheek skinship.  The men folk with their whiskers just aren't that fun to get that close too!
Guess, I'll have to get out my camera again and start something new.

Goodbye to kids

Been over two weeks but I'm just finishing up our photos of the wonderful vacation with our kids.  Above you can see how Nami enjoys singing with us.  It was funny when Jack and I started singing Silent Night, she started to sing too.
Hi-ojiisan and Hi-obaasan with Nami the last day
Last group photo before we took the kids to the airport.  The man between me and Jack is Uncle N.  who is Ojiisan's youngest brother.  Actually he is closer in age to Jack.

No Pacifire for Nami!

Nami doesn't like the idea of a pacifire.  No she wants the real thing.  
Before taking the kids to the airport, we went out for lunch to Jack's cousins Chinese restaurant.  We always eat too much here!  But with no classes for a few days we could eat the garlic dishes.
Andy eathing a piece of cheese cake on his peanut butter toast.  At meals at home we would put Nami in her yellow chair and she enjoyed playing with the round ball.

Nami sits up

Nami can sit up in the cuddle rocker.  Above she is holding her toshidama (Japanese children's New Years present money) she got from her great grandparents.

Oops, she is beginning to tip over!  Below is my favorite photo of her.

Nami's prints

Koji and Katsura brought a photo frame print set to give to Ojiisan and Obaasan as a Christmas present.  Here they are making the prints.  It had a clean celophane plastic that kept baby's hand and foot clean yet copied the print.  The foot was easy, but took several tries to get the hand as Nami wasn't really into holding her hand down on the pad without movement!

Here is the result.  Ojiisan wrote the comments so he could remember the date, where and who.

Skiing in Iwatake

Above Katsura and Waka in red are ready to go down the hill on the top of Iwatake ski area.  I was inside watching Nami with Jack and the boys took their wives for a few runs.  When Ka-chan came in to relieve me she said she was afraid to ski another round as she would then not want to stop!  She is actually a snowboarder but we didn't have equipment for her and she wanted to try skiing.
Here we are all posed on top of the hill.  We took the gondola up to the nice lodge on top and from there we coud enjoy good snow conditions on several lifts.  The bottom of the gondola area was pretty short on snow.
After and before.  When we came this snow man greated us at the minshiku (small family run inn where we stay every year) Above was what it looked like as we left!  I had to kiss it goodbye.

Christmas Eve

Back to Christmas Eve.  After our big meal that Waka fixed for us we decided to open the presents under the tree.  First we each played our own Santa and gave the people we had a special present for.  Here I am with my 2nd Christmas present from Jack in 33 years!  It is a lovely black down jacket.  His present from me was a tennis jacket I found at the recycle shop!  After that there were alot of presents still under the tree.  I had wrapped up white elephants/jokes/recycle stuff and whatever I thought would be fun.  Starting with Ojiisan he could chose a present.  On the third photo you can see he got a pair of boxer shorts with Winnie the Pooh on them.  He said he didn't need or want them,  Okay I told him to just wait.  Then we went down the list by age and we could either chose a new present or exchange and take away someone elses present and then the person who was left empty handed could chose another new present.  When it got to Andy, he took away Ojiisan's Winnie shorts!  Anyway it was lots of fun and several presents were left on my dining table that no one would take home!  Well, I might wrap them up for next year!

Who Do I look like?

Above is a photo of Uncle Andy when he was small.  Looks alot like Nami!  Then below is a photo of Koji the day after his birth with his older brother Andy.  He was over 9 lbs. so Nami looked like him when she was about 2 months old!
Below Nami is sleeping beside the first passport of her daddy.  Sure can't tell looking at the photo if it is Koji or Nami!

Nami loves sleeping being held by Grammy.  I hope that is what she calls me.  My Mom was always Granny, and I can't use that as that is reserved for her memory.  But I think Grammy is good.
Koji wanted to sleep downstairs where we could leave the heat on and keep the temperature even for baby.  So we pulled out the hide-a-bed sofa in the piano room.  There was no room to walk on either side and came out to within 2 feet of the sliding door into the front room, but it worked and we enjoyed having them close.  Koji and Katsura put up cushions at the other side for their feet and made the be king-sized.  Nami sleeps between them.  Of course she is not getting spoiled.