Satomi's Cancer Blog

It’s 9:00pm and Satomi finally woke up. 

It took me changing her diaper and giving her nighttime medication to do it.  She still didn’t talk and the loopiness was obvious but the eyes stayed open. 

I gave her a couple ounces of juice, about eight pear slices and about six ounces of water.  Not much in normal people terms but a feast by famished sleeping people terms.  I wiped her face and gave her a kiss and she went back to sleep. 

Also, I cut back her nighttime meds to half-normal.  Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Sorry this post is so short but I thought you all would want to know.

Satomi sleeps a lot. 

It’s 4:30pm Tuesday afternoon and so far, she’s been awake about twenty-minutes.  The word “awake” is a bit too generous though.  In this context, “awake” means one eye open and enough consciousness to coax her to open her mouth.  It took some effort but we got in some liquids and high-calorie food.  Even in this state, she was a picky eater.  She didn’t like the Ensure shake at all.  In the end it fell back onto a couple ounces of vitamin-enriched juice, a few tablespoons of melted ice cream, and some sips of water.  There were no words, no wave, and no greeting for her visitors.  In all practical measures, she’s sedated now.

Yesterday, she was a bit more alert but still ate very minimally; a bite or two for breakfast, sleeping through lunch and a “later, later” response for dinner.  As it got later, I got determined and called in the big guns-her all time favorite-Dobash Chocolate Cake!  Her mom gave her two bites before Satomi refused it.  That wasn’t good enough for me so I grabbed the cake and sat down next to the bed.

I wrote Satomi a note, “You don’t eat or drink.  Nothing for two days.  You must eat something.”  It took a few minutes for her to read and understand.

I sliced off a small bit of cake and gave it to her.  She was slow to chew but responded after tasting it, “…yum…”

I broke off more cake and continued.  Her pace quickened until the entire piece including all of the frosting was either in her stomach or on her face.  I was so happy that she got something in her.  She drank a few gulps of water and quickly fell back to sleep.

We’ll try to give her something else later this evening.

Her pain is controlled but her dosage is so high, her body is on the verge of sedation.  If her pain continues to increase at its normal rate, Satomi will need another Fentanyl patch in one to two weeks.  Given her response to the last patch, I think it is very likely that the next dose could permanently sedate her.  Notice I used the word “permanently”.

Most of you are very savvy readers and pickup on my implied meanings but this time, I’m going to speak to the point.  

If any of you want to visit Satomi and have some possibility of a meaningful interaction, I would plan to do it ASAP.  Her condition changes everyday so sooner is definitely better.

I’m so sorry for the tough love tone but I don’t want there to be any confusion or more importantly, regrets. 

I really hope I’m wrong.

Many of you may have received an E-mail message from me last night that included some spam message about drifting apart or money problems or something like that.  The english is terrible and there’s some crazy link included so it should be obvious that it’s not me.  But just to be sure…

I did not send it.

After a quick heads-up from a buddy of mine, I did a bit of digging into it this morning.  I noticed dozens of “Failed Delivery” notices in my Spam folder but nothing in the Sent box.  The notices included names scattered throughout my Contacts List so I assume it went to everyone.  Shit!

Access to my Contacts means they got access to my Username and Password.  This gave them access to my primary Yahoo E-mail (sean.okamoto@yahoo.com) and my business account hosted by Yahoo (sean.okamoto@airisenviro.com).  Double shit!

I immediately changed my password but I knew this wouldn’t be enough.  I went online to research the subject a bit.  Here are some good articles on the subject:

1. http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_email_that_looks_like_its_from_me_to_my_contacts_what_can_i_do.html
2. http://ask-leo.com/is_changing_my_password_enough.html
3. http://ask-leo.com/someones_sending_from_my_email_address_how_do_i_stop_them.html

This Leo guy seems to know what he’s talking about and explains it well.  It was very useful and I incorporated all of his recommendations.

I’m now taking this to the next level.

I already track all of my account logins, passwords, and security questions in a “little black book” that I keep in a fireproof safe here at home and a backup copy offsite but there’s so much more that can be done.

1. Many of my existing passwords are usually short, say 4 to 8 characters.  I’ve recently signed up for online access to several new accounts and all now require a longer password that included lower and upper case letters, numbers, and a special character (@, $, #, etc).  I’m changing all accounts to this new format.
2. I set my Calendar to remind me to change my passwords periodically-Say quarterly for low risk accounts like my water bill or electricity to monthly for high risk accounts like by banking.
3. My home wi-fi is 128-bit secured but the pass phrase is less than a dozen characters so it is not impossible to crack.  It’s being changed now to a randomized “non-pass phrase” security.

I’m sure there’s more I can do but for now, it will suffice.  With all of my stresses, I don’t need this kind of crap to take up my time.

In any case, I apologize to any of you that may have received one of this malicious E-mails.