Satomi's Cancer Blog

With a lot of effort from her friends Irene and Brenda, Satomi went outside and loved every second of it.  Getting down the stairs was actually easier than in attempts past.  I guess practice makes perfect!

I’ll be sure not to mention anything about them getting lost since I’m sure the exercise made it all worth it.  The 1.25 mile walk from our pad to the park isn’t as far as it sounds.  Uh…ya…

Here’s some pix of their recent adventure.

She looks happy huh?

The day was full of excitement and luckily, she was only tired afterward.  No seizures.  No headaches.

Thanks Irene and Brenda!

A day off?  You must be friggin joking.  After all of these weeks, these months of dire servitude, I just don’t believe it.  Hmmm…let’s think about this for a moment:  What else do I need to do?  I have a list of must-do’s that have been ignored for months now.  What’s on the top of the list?  Oh crap.  I know what I have to do.

I set appointments with representatives from Rose Hills and Fukui Mortuary.

I’ve planned and run weddings, birthdays, dozens of different social events for hundreds of people, and even the odd casino night or two but I’ve never planned a funeral service before.  I went online and it quickly became obvious to me that it could easily be as complicated as a wedding.  At least at a wedding, you’d have a list of RSVP’s and can plan accordingly.  A funeral is a very different dynamic. 

There I go again, acting like it’s some sort of project I have to choreograph.  “Enter stage left.  Cue lights.  Cue music.”  These meetings are going to suck.  I’m going to have to handle it like this for the time being.  I apologize for it being so crass.

Satomi and I spoke about her service several times these past weeks.  It initially was something we avoided.  While Sandra was still visiting, during a period of unusual clarity, Satomi said “…when are we going to talk about my service?”  Sandra burst into tears and I sat shocked. 

A few days later, she asked again.  This time, I had an answer for her:

• Service
• Cremation
• Dump half in Hawaii
• Keep some for the girls
• Put the rest in a jar in the frig next to the Kim Chi

She laughed and nodded. 

A few days later she asked again.  Apparently she forgot our previous in-depth discussion.

I repeated myself again but this time with a bit more detail.

• A service of some kind.  Not sure what yet.  She agreed.
• Is Cremation Ok?  “OK”, she says.
• The girls and I will travel to Hawaii and disperse your ashes on her favorite beach-Lani Kai near Kailua.  She smiled.
• Put a small amount of ashes in keepsake urns and given them to our girls when they are older.  She nodded.
• Keep the rest of the ashes here at home in an urn in the refrigerator next to the Kim Chi jar.  She laughed again.

So that’s all the info I had.  I’d have to research the rest.

The Rose Hills lady was nice and their coffee was good.  We looked at pretty pictures of their huge property and spoke of the service.  The problem was that I had no idea what I wanted for the service-just a few ideas.

• The chapel has to be big-something like 300+.  Overflow is fine in an emergency but to knowingly pick a small chapel is just tacky.
• There’s to be an open casket viewing beforehand and during the Service and people can place mementos in the casket.
• Afterward, I don’t want to go to a Chinese restaurant like at most other funerals.  I want some catered food in a large room with big tables so people can move around and talk about Satomi’s life.  Maybe there’s even going to be a slide show or something.

It was good information but in the end, it felt like I was buying a car.  The truth is that I’m considering them since they are the biggest around and her Dad is buried there.  All in for the service, chapel, mortuary service, a bunch of permits/certificates, and some decent urns was just south of $5,000.  This doesn’t include the social gathering afterward, anything paid to the Pastor, the plot/niche, or maintenance fees. 

A niche in an outside wall starts at $4,000 and can exceed double that.  A plot is $8,000 and up.  Wow that’s expensive but I guess it’s real estate so I shouldn’t be shocked.  I’m going to have to talk with Satomi about her wishes.

The other problem is that I had no one to do the Service.  I wasn’t about to ask a friend or family member to do it.  I’m going to have to return to that one.

I had a few hours until my Fukui meeting downtown so I stopped in for a quick haircut.  I told my Stylist about my day and my lack of a Pastor.  She immediately stopped me and said, “I got the solution to your problem!  Use our Pastor.  She’s a sweet JA lady Pastor and would be perfect.”  My Stylist continued “…just the other week, we had a 400 person service at our church and we work with Fukui all the time.  We have a big community room that you can have a gathering afterward…You can have it catered by this guy right here…”  She hands me a menu full of some of my favorite foods.  This gotta be some kind of sign.  I sat there with my head half shaved and said, “uh…ok…have her call me so we can all meet…”

January 25th Update:  I have a meeting set with Pastor Nancy Wong of Anaheim Free Methodist church next Thursday.

The Fukui meeting was quite somber.  I guess that’s the usual tone for these sort of meetings.  I kept making stupid jokes.  It wasn’t until the end of the meeting, I got the guy to crack a smile.  We talked more about a typical program and we looked at sample urns and the cremation casket.  I didn’t realize that the casket used for the viewing was burned along with the body.  Rosehills had a rental casket available.  Fukui focused his pitch on the level and detail of their service.  We all know Fukui so he didn’t have to pitch too hard.  Rosehills had already answered all of my bonehead questions. 

By this time, I was most interested in the cost.  All in for a day-before viewing, mortuary services, permits/certificates, urns, casket, and their premium service was nearly $7,000.  This doesn’t include the social gathering, church, the Pastor, and the plot/niche/maintenance.  If I assume $2,000 for the church and Pastor, and another $2,500 for the gathering, the non-plot cost is already over $11k.

The meeting ended after 3:00pm.  I had to fight downtown traffic all the way home.  All this information was just oozing from my head.  Somewhere between the 710 and 605 it all sunk in and I got depressed and really sad.  I’m sure pumping my N’Sync CD didn’t help things.

I’m glad I got it done but in the end it really was a shitty way to spend a day off.

The Monster struck back at me tonight.  It put up a hell of a fight.  Our first meeting was a frontal assault and it hit me with all of its heavy weapons.  Although I was ultimately victorious, I learned to respect its power.  This time the dark gooey bastard snuck up on me.  It was only at half strength but the element of surprise caused me to lose my cool and nearly surrender on several occassions.  This is the story of our battle this eve.  If any of you have a weak temperment, please refrain from continuing.  It is entirely possible that I am suffering from PPTSD (Post Poo Traumatic Stress Disorder) so I cannot tell the story in as graphic detail as in the past.  I will do what I can.

Here’s some background. 

For many weeks now, Satomi had been trying to convince me to let her pee on the bedside toilet.  Since she has a catheter, doing so is just a waste of energy and increases her risk of seizure.  As you can imagine my answer 99% of the time is “Nope”.  Since she doesn’t typically remember my long explanations about all this, I usually just skip it and shake my head “No!”  This may sound cold but if any of you were here with me and experienced her perseveration first hand, there would be no complaints. 

In an effort to be fair or at least seem so, I now respond to her request with a simple question “Pee or Poo?”  Any “Pee” or reluctant “…….Poo” answers were met with me showing her the catheter bag with no verbal response whatsoever.  Efficient and to the point.  In return, Satomi has a tendancy to call me an “ASS!”.  I’ve mostly gotten used to it after the first thousand times.  Anyway, I digress.  The important point to remember is that these discussions and subsequent insults can last many minutes.

In recent days, Satomi has learned not to answer “Pee”.  I’m convinced that it’s because we’ve been doing it for so long, it’s moved from short-term memory to long-term memory.  She either blatantly lies and says “Poo” or she says “I don’t know.”  In anticipation of corraling the infamous poo monster, we make the effort to transfer her to the bedside toilet and accept the associated risks.  In nearly all instances, the monster never appeared and in some instances, Satomi forgot why she was sitting on the toilet-Seriously.  I kept getting mad.  It felt like I was Charlie Brown and she was the proverbial Lucy with that damn foot ball. 

So I’ve learned that my drugged-out wife is full of crap and she’s cries wolf way too often.  Whenever she answers “Poo”, I am compelled to be distrustful and ask more questions.

—————-

Just before dinner today, I moved Satomi from the bed to the wheelchair.  She typically eats her meals there as it supports her back well and she has the oppurtunity to get out of her bed.  Once she was down onto the wheelchair, I sat down on the floor in front of her and pushed on her knees to help her slide back into the chair.  I heard a fart and smelled a smell.  Nasty but not as nasty as I’ve experienced in recent weeks.

I looked at her and said “Potty?”

She said “Pee…Poo…”  She was confused.

I wrote her a note asking her “Pee or poo?”

She looked at me for a second and said “I need to go bad.”

I stood up, opened the bedside toilet, and tried to get her to stand up.

She said “I think I went already…”

“No!” I screamed.  That was really fast.

I pulled the tabs off the diaper to view the damage.  It was complete carnage.  The monster attacked from underneath and came forward and engulfed the entire front portion of the diaper.  It looked like peanut butter-Yukk!  Every crack, crevase, and orifice was caked full of the monster.  I had to stop many times to compose myself and to keep Satomi from moving any part of her body.

The trauma was so great, my PPTSD caused me to supress the detailed memories.  Consider yourselves lucky.

Two full packages of baby wipes, twenty-pairs of gloves, and ten disposable liners later, the wheelchair and Satomi were clean enough to return to a normal life.  I am really concerned that all the corners and crevices are adequately clean but I’ll probably leave that to the sponge bath aide lady tomorrow.

The monster took advantage of all our “pee or poo” bickering.  That ninja bastard is sneaky.

Akemi’s expertise has helped us in many ways.  Probably the most practical is the diagnosis of a potential urinary tract infection (UTI).  It was based soley on the color and odor of the Foley bag.  I am told such a smell is impossible to forget and is something that females the world over are familiar with.  In all of my maleness, I will just take her word for it.

I called the Hospice RN and we started a broad-base antibiotic.  To save time, we actually used some Septra that we already had in our extensive inventory of meds.  If it doesn’t clear up in a few days, they would pull a culture and test for the proper antibiotics.

I’m a bit surprised about the offer to do a culture.  I didn’t think hopice allow any sort of diagnostic testing.  In any case, hopefully it will clear up soon.