A day of visitors and juggling cars to elude the street-sweeping-parking-ticket Gestapo or what is known as our typical Thursday.
Satomi had a decent day although not quite as good as yesterday. Today was Day-3 of her Fentanyl patch and the medication dosage starts to drop off. Day-3 is typically the day that she’s the most lucid but also in the most pain. She had a few “minor” headaches and back aches and neck aches and joint aches. I think you get the picture.
In the afternoon, I swapped out her patches. She has to roll over to change them so it’s never pleasant. There are always moans of pain and all her bones creak. She’s almost a skeleton under all that floppy skin. Her pain control should return in a few hours.
We are also monitoring her temperature now. The other day, her temperature was 101.2°F. The RN attributed it to three blankets in the middle of the day. Hmmm-I guess that makes sense. I did see a little bit of sweat on her brow. After a bit of experimentation, we found that if we cut back to only one blanket during the daytime, her temperature is spot-on.
Food intake was typical-a cup of apple sauce, a smashed banana, several ounces of juice and water. Nothing usual to report except that we hear her stomach more now. It seems to be bubbling or growling whenever we give her anything. The RN took this positively as it’s a sign that her bowels are still working. I take it as a sign that she may barf at any moment.
Our friend, Tina Yang, came over and treated Satomi using acupuncture. She’s done this many time before and Satomi likes it. This time though, there were no needles. The last few visits ended with Satomi falling asleep and unconsciously pulling out the needles. As you can imagine, this was bad. This time, Tina used magnets on specific acupressure points. Take a look at Tina’s website for more information (http://coastalacupuncturectr.com/about.html). I am strongly considering acupuncture to treat my chronic headaches.
Pastor Nancy also joined us. It’s been a couple of weeks since she’s been here and she noticed the changes in Satomi’s condition. She tells me that she reads this blog on occasion (“Hi Nancy!”). Maybe I shouldn’t cuss so much; Just kidding-I know that I’m not fooling anyone.
Satomi was a bit restless at bedtime-nothing significant but just very alert. Besides her new normal reduced medications, I added back in a half-tablet of Ambien. She was sleeping by 9:00pm and continued to do so all night.
One of several community service efforts that Satomi, myself, and dozens of our close friends took an active role in was “Hanashi: The Voice of the Nisei Soldier”. It was an organized effort to chronicle the oral histories of Japanese American Soldiers that fought for the United States in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 100th Infantry Battalion, or Military Information Service during World War II.
You all may recall that many of the members of these units had families indentured in internment camps throughout the war.
We served as members of traveling video documentary crews. They were composed of an interviewer, camera operator, sound and lighting person, and producer. We interviewed the veterans and documented their war experience along with their family experience living in the internment camps.
In many instances, these veterans had NEVER spoken about it before to anyone. As you can imagine, the experience was moving on many levels.
The veterans sacrifice and accomplishments were memorialized on the Go For Broke Monument in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles in 1999.
Take a close look and see if you see any names you may recognize. And if you forgot, Satomi’s maiden name is “Enomoto”.
We are both blessed to have been a part of this and are proud of our service.
For more information please visit:
As you all may have figured by now, Irene is Satomi’s best friend. She met Irene back in elementary school through a mutual friend, Yuka. At the time, they didn’t know that there were to become best friends until they met again at Yonemoto’s Physical Therapy. They worked together then, went to Physical Therapy school at CSU Long Beach and worked together again at Tustin Rehab Hospital. Satomi was Irene’s maid of honor and Irene was Satomi’s.
Here are a few pictures of them over the years.
Here they are in Punchbowl on the Island of Oahu in Hawaii.
A photo from a Halloween Party from the early days at Tustin Rehab.
Irene’s wedding picture with her Maid of Honor.
Irene’s birthday thrown at Satomi’s Condo.
Satomi loves Irene and trusts her whole-heartedly. Irene has been to our home more often than anyone and her devotion to Satomi is without question. We are all so lucky to have her with us throughout this terrible process-She is family to us.
Today was another good day for Satomi. She slept well and woke early; 5:30am according to her Mom. I fed her juice, a partial cup of apple sauce and another partial cup of strawberry yogurt, and about 4 ounces of water. I thought she was eating too much but I took my chances. I delayed administering her morning medication until the food had a chance to settle.
Most of the morning she sat awake. She was lucid and spoke a bit. It was still partially clouded but was better than other days. She slept until the hospice aide, Rosa, and our RN, Mary Ann, arrived before lunch.
The news was mostly positive and all were happy that her night-time medication levels. There are still signs of progression and we were warned to be diligent but it is obvious that today is a good day and it should be enjoyed by all. With that in mind, we called a person from her “visitor queue”. It turned out to be a nice lunchtime visit. We are lucky that her visitor only worked 15 minutes away and could respond quickly.
This afternoon was similar. Another of our friends arrived with pictures in hand and there were several big smiles. I’ll pose some of these later. The afternoon ended with a long nap.
Satomi's Cancer Blog 
