"One thing at a time"

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family members. Everyone is busy and so is our family. But we would like to take a moment to stop and wish all of our friends a very special Christmas. Personally, I struggled this year more than others to slow down and enjoy the season in a way that the season deserves. This year is yet another year in which we saw Erik grow and mature in many ways. He is so much taller and I am almost sure that he would be taller than me soon! His hands have grown quite a bit making his piano playing more powerful. Erik worked very hard on academics, piano, lego building and whatever else that comes his way. He spent many hours a week on practicing piano this year again. Some of you may recall that he participated in a Piano Concerto Competition in January. Erik is preparing for yet another one for this upcoming January. I never thought that, some of the music books I purchased yrs ago would come in handy for Erik. Erik played quite a few pieces from my Beethov...

Today, I spent about half and hour playing with my son. I play the flute but I am not at all an expert like my son is with his piano. But I love the music and what it does to me when my mind is tired. I have been frantically working on my course assignment for my doctorate class at the same time I have been working on all the lecture preparation that I am giving in Japan in a few weeks. Lecture is very technologically demanding these days. I have made three sets of slides, each set is like 40-50 slides. Some have video, some have several photos with music embedded in it to enhance the learning and enhance the delivery. So, I probably put too much energy into the creation of my slides/video/audio combined presentation. So I decided to take a break and had fun practicing a few pieces with Erik. Erik was able to sight read this peace so we put something together for fun. Another video is from the reformation Sunday this past week when Erik presented his offertory at Church. A mighty fortr...

Bare with me, this is not an interesting post to most of you. Erik is loving his French class this year. But, in order to take French and fit it into his schedule, we ran into some scheduling glitches at his school. Erik has been fortunate to enjoy advanced Science and Math last two years. (we have some thoughts about what they consider advanced, though). He took Algebra I and Biology I in 8th grade. So, this year, he was supposed to take Advanced Honor level Chemistry (meaning his AH class buddies from last two years would be in it) and AH level Geometry (again with the same group of AH kids from the last two years). But in order to take French he was advised to take Algebra ll with the 10th graders (and Geometry next year with the current 8th graders who would be 9th grade next year) and he was also placed in regular honors Chemistry with 10th graders (meaning they are not advanced honor track kids). So, for two of the major classes he is thrown in with big, unfamiliar 10 graders! (...

Everyday is new but everyday brings challenges. I don't know why I do this to myself but I seem to bring on extra task to myself...I can complain and say I did not ask for it but after all, I am allowing it to fall on my lap, so to speak. Today, I spent lazy two hours in the morning just looking back at some of the writing I did in the past or past recordings of my son. Some where in the back of my mind was this nagging sensation of "get up to do your laundry" (which I did while being lazy) or practice flute or piano, or what is next on my agenda for the health informatics course I am taking, or don't you need to go to the bank to do that errands,,, etc etc....And, of course I am thinking about the three talks I need to create for Nov in Japan and 5 talks to be given in Feb also in Japan. All the preparation takes time. One our of talk may require 40 hours of preparation at time if it requires research. So, I have quite a few things on my plate but I am reminded that ...

I would have to call the year 2011 an appliance year of my life! Last night's sudden demise of my short lived refrigerator was disappointing to the least and discouraging to my budget. Let me name all the appliances I had to replace this last 10 months or so. In November, my dryer took a permanent leave of absence leaving the position open for a new staff to fill. It was only several nights before I was to leave for Japan for a two week visit to teach. We quickly found one and replaced it. A few days later, My mac wen ton strike, again leaving me little choice but to fire him and to replace him with a new Pro guy. The timing was quite trucial since I was to leave for Japan in two days. In the spring, I recall, April, my washer was replaced with a newer model. We found an excellent replacement while we were looking for a dishwasher for our church. So, by this spring, our 17 ys old washer and dryer both retired. Well, my vacuum cleaner also decided to claim senior citizen status, ...

This is bit of a delayed entry, I must say. Last week, I had a strong urge to get my painting gear out for the first time in almost 3 yrs or more. I experienced so much inspiration this summer that made me want to reach out to a painting brush and a few tubes of paint while traveling through beautiful New England states or Northern Michigan. Of course, traveling in a car won't afford you a space of luxury to "paint" but I could not shake off the feeling or the need to create something from my image that I accumulated in the month of our traveling. I sat down one afternoon after I spent a whole day planting, repotting, cleaning, etc..I was thirsty for something that fed my creative element..it is an inspiration born of the creation that declares the glory. Although Van Gogh is not necessarily the closest human being I aspire to want to be, but I can not help it that I enjoy breathing the air he breathed when he held his brush. I don't know or understand all the eccentr...

Academia and what it cost to be involved with it too deeply is overwhelming at times. I asked Erik, "what do you think about your mama being a student again". I know he still remembers when he was 4 yrs old and I was at Vanderbilt working on my MSN in Neonatal Nurse Practitioner training. Then I got cancer at the end of the game instead of being relieved from the academic study and enjoy the new career. I was not sure what his reaction would be. "Oh, by the way, it is mostly on line although I would have to be away maybe a few more days a semester than I already am". He thought about it and said, "Cool". What are you studying?". I told him that the course I am taking is called, "Health Informatics" and it is about information technology and health care data or education. He looked at me and said, that would be cool... What is it going to give you? You already have masters! When I told him that I ma working toward a doctoral degree, his ey...

Tonight was one of those meaningful evening where you gather with friends and just enjoy being together. Along with the regular menu or typical Labor Day cookout, I decided to do one of my son's favorite food.. , GYOZA. It was fun to prepare the gyoza together with friends and eat them around the table just poking at the plump gyoza and popping them in our mouth one after another. My favorite is to dip GYOZA in soy sauce mixed with hot sauce. It is too bad that I did not take any photograph of the delicious experience tonight. But the after taste of the fun with friends linger in my memory and it is getting me ready to face the new week,,,, An adventure begins soon. I decided to tackle going back to the learning environment again, one credit at a time, , just like we wrap our gyoza one gyoza at a time.

Erik Playing with my Wig, Dec 2002 Erik, weighing less than 5 lb. Wow, is ALL I could say when I saw my "High School Freshman" opened the passenger door and hopped in after the first day of school. I am a mother of a freshman student? Or is my son old enough to be in high school? or whatever the thoughts that rushed to my mind was of simple amazement.. When I experienced cancer, I simply stopped thinking about things that pertain to the far future,, such as Erik in high school. I never imagined it. He was in kindergarten then, with an innocent smile, he asked what made me decide to change my hair style and shave it all off. Worriedly, he asked if he would pick up the same illness and lose his hair by kissing me. The growth and maturity that i never could imagine that day was sitting in front of me. Then I looked in the mirror and saw a woman who definitely looks a bit more mature than I remember. I honestly thought that living till 50 would mean a long life w...

There is first time for everything. Erik and I both experienced the art of building something out of a chunk of clay. It was not just fun but extremely precious learning experience. Erik was quite meticulous and patient. He was also SO INTO it. Two hours went by very quickly while learning to pinch just right, mold just right. or squeeze or roll just right! We had an excellent master potter who pretty much gave us a private instructions for the entire time. His teaching ability was also exceptional. Erik turned the wheel slowly smoothing the edge or attempting to even out the shape. I could not help but thinking about the imagery of how each of us sits on the wheel and molded day by day,,,,, one turn at a time.

It is 3:30 AM in the call room at the hospital in nashville. The day and the evening went quite busy and I am sitting down feeling the need to unwine, instead of going to bed. When I feel so exhausted, nothing is more soothing than good music. So I decided to listen to some of my son's recent performances. Then I realized that I never finished editing and uploading something I intended to do last week. So, here is the Sunday morning playing from a few weeks ago when Erik was so honored to be invited to play for our friend's church. I often hear friends ask, or comment, "You must be proud". What I feel as a mother is actually very complex. More often, I feel incredibly humbled by it all. It amazes me that someone blessed us with a sweet boy,,, I also always have this sense that it is not for me to hold onto just for me or for us, it is meant for giving back. I enjoy sharing the music he enjoys with others around us. I hope he would know, how much, Just how much I per...

What can I say, except, Indeed He is Risen. I am grateful for the love Erik has for the hymns and the time he takes to practice hymns like this out of his regular piano studies. I have been blessed to have music that thrills my soul, at no admission fee, and live! while in the comfort of my home.

When I go abroad not knowing what kind of encounter is waiting for me, I am almost always met with a nice surprise that tells me that I do not go anywhere alone. Last october, my trip to South Africa gave me a special hour with a Zulu nurse leader who invieted me to have my personal tour of the city. When she discovered that we share the faith, she was amazed at best but more than that she could not wait to spend a personal time with me. She drove me in her car and we sang hymns while we were on the road... I always find it exciting to look for the surprise that is sent from above. I just returned from a week in Japan participating in a disaster relief team made up of various health care professionals. I was one of the 4 Japanese who joined the team on March 30th from the US. There were about 20 of us all together (click the photo above). Another one of the 4 was a nurse from Los Angels. By the way, if you click the photo, you would be directed to the picasa album that was also posted ...

I just returned from Japan after spending a week working with precious people volunteering for the needy areas affected by the disaster. I would like to share my photo album, which only describes a fraction of the work that is being done by many volunteers, or a fraction of the needs that are identified. If you click the photo above, you will arrive at my album that shows some of the activities. Even though the photos do not do justice, seeing is believing. The recovery would be a long one. The people are patient and tough in Tohoku area. It is difficult to determine whether the Japanese government has been able to do all that they could possibly do. Well ,they rejected several offers of foreign help for reasons, I have a difficult time understanding. They agreed to have the Israeli team come but the Israeli capacity and their ability was rather limited to only a certain area. The Israeli facility is by far superior to any Japanese facilities that are in the area at this point. The ...

I shared with you about a week ago that Dr. H from Iwaki (Fukushima prefecture, about 30 KM from the Nuclear Plant) shared the difficulty he is going through at his hospital while he was delivering care to the neonates in an environment with limited resources with the impending nuclear thread growing. His hospital since transported several infants to other facilities but he is sticking to one patient who is too unstable to transport. We received a mail through the neonatal list serve yesterday with a story of unforgettable 4 lives. Unforgettable 4 lives. Dr. H expresses that he is clearly distraught at the time of writing and that he wishes the others who are in the neonatal medicine/nursing would be able to identify with his thoughts. He took care of a trisomy 13 infant sometime ago who stayed at this NICU nearly a year and was discharge home to continue the medical care at home. Trisomy 13 is a chromosomal condition that is often not consistent with life but this infant waas able to...

いわき共立病院の本田先生が大変悲しい御体験をシェアして下さいました。悲しい家族の体験は今の日本のあちらこちらから、聞こえてきます。新生児NPの私に取って、先天性疾患の赤ちゃん、生まれて、短い命を閉じられる赤ちゃんを見て来て、どのような赤ちゃんも特別な贈り物をお母さんの胸にのこして行くと思っていました。この先生のお書きになった内容に大変胸を打たれました。 メーリングリストの皆様 いわき共立の本田です。投稿するべき内容ではないと思いますが投稿します 取り乱していますので、間違いなく支離滅裂の内容になると思いますが、ご容赦くだ さい １年間のNICU入院生活の後に、在宅人工呼吸器で退院された１３トリソミーの赤ちゃ んがいました ４月から養護学校入学予定でした ３歳の弟がいます。 お母さんは妊娠中で、その子の入学式に出席されるために３月２８日を帝王切開予定 にしていました。 津波が来て祖母とお子様二人、お母さんが流されました。 お母さんは二人のお子さんを抱え妊娠中でもあったため、避難が遅れたようです 母親は子供二人を抱きかかえた まま離さず、流されてお亡くなりになりました 本日、その１３トリソミーの赤ちゃんが見つかり荼毘に付したとお父さんが報告にい らしてくれました。 下のお子さんは、いまだに行方不明です。 私見ですが、寝たきりの１３トリソミーの赤ちゃんを置いて、３歳の子と二人なら逃 げられたのかもしれません。そのように考える私は綺麗ごとを言っても、しょせん偏 見の塊であることを 認めなければなりません。母親の愛は、理屈でしか物事の価値を判断できない私の ちっぽけな心をはるかに凌駕しています 生まれてきた命にはすべて同じ価値がある、そんなことを言う資格は私にはありませ ん。それを実践された家族にのみ許された言葉だと思います しかし、その家族の気持ちをたくさんの人に伝えることはできます。それがこれから の私の使命だと思います 母親は理屈抜きに全ての子供に同じように命がけで愛情を持つ、この母親の気持ちを すべての周産期関係者に知っていただきたいと思います お父さんが伝えていかれた言葉は NICU入院中はかなり厳しい経過もありましたが、助けていただいて、ありがとうござ いました 生まれた時は、足が震えて、「この子からは、子供を持った喜びは、もらえないんで はないか」と感じたこと ...

Precious time with your child is a treasure you would never regret having. You want to stop the world if it was going to give you valuable time with your family to enjoy. This past Thursday, I kept my prior commitment to my son's school and spent 4 hours judging the Elementary Social Studies Fair. Yes, there was a long list of things to do but it was the priority to give back. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the children give their proud presentation on various research topic from Coca Cola to Benjamin Franklin. GO! for the 3-5th graders who worked hard. Erik did not have any home work on Thursday afternoon for the first time in weeks..... He and I played tennis in front of our house for a little while and then moved to the tennis court at Erik's school later on. The weather was perfect as well as our spirit. Part of me that is feeling guilty about leaving my husband and my son during this time, the week of his spring break in order to participate in the disaster relief ef...

March of Dimes accomplished a great work due mostly to the small dimes that the nation collected...... マーチオブダイムズはたったの１０セントを国民から集める事で、ポリオのワクチンへの研究を成し遂げるために 大きな業績を残したといえます。。。。。。 全国の皆さんの１０円でも１００円でも１０００円でも１００００円でも、皆さんがすこしづつ頑張る事は 国の復興に繋がります。将来を担う新生児のために、よろしく御願い足します。 http://www.baby-net.jp/

行方が分からなくなっていた、仙台市若林区、荒浜地区在住の、友人のおじさん、おばさん、そして、９０歳のおばあさんが８日目に見つかりました。（３／１８） 日本語訳は英語の後ですので、スクロールダウンして下さい。 そして最期で申し訳有りませんが、許可をえて、コピペした、友人でNP学生の方の日本での活動状況を紹介します。 Have you heard of an amazing story that made you tear up and gave you an inspiration that would last your life time? That is exactly what I received today when my dear friend shared with me what occurred in Japan to her family. My dear friend Miiko in Nashville has been hoping and praying for the safe rescue of her aunt and uncle whom Miiko and her family have not been able to locate or reach since last Friday, 3/11/11. On the 8th day since the quake and tsunami completely engulfed the area her aunt and uncle lived and owned strawberry patch, Miiko continued to hope to one day find their names on one of the posting of survivors at one of the evacuation centers in northern Japan. What happened to her aunt and uncle and how their lives were preserved is beyond anyone's imagination. The good news is, they are found alive on 3/...

Emergency Entries...Japanese only, can't take time to translate everything into English at this moment. But, in a nut shell, a nursing faculty is describing　 the condition she is seeing in Fukushima where due to the nuclear threat, media coverage is poor, supply shipment and other assistance for recovery is in great need. Pray for the Japanese Government so that the leaders would be given wisdom and courage to say "they need help' before things are too late. Thank you all for your support. I will E mail my regular readers in English. If you don't hear from me, E mail me. 息子がいつか将来英語で母親が綴る家族のこと、日本の親戚の事を 読めたら、と乳がん再発の事が時々、あたまによぎる中、ブログという 物に初めて手を出してしばらくたちます． 自分個人の家族，こどもの成長、趣味、思いを綴っているプライベートなブログで、これ迄 日本語で書いた事もなければ、日本の友人に紹介する事も滅多にありませんでした。 今回新生児医療のための基金活動のために、一昨日初めて日本語でブ ログを書きました．そうしたら、勇気がでて、いまは 自分のプライバシーがどうのこうのといっている場合ではなく この媒介を使う事にしました．福島で苦労されているある看護教員 のレポートを許可をいただき、またお名前を伏せて、紹介します。 動けるかた、（つまり、これを読んで、自分に出来る事がある、 と感じられる方、“何か”をして下さい） そして、動けなくても寄付が出来る方、前日のブログをお読みください。 新生児関係の先生...

Have you ever had an opportunity to reach out to someone who is not your family member and gain such an incredible joy of getting to know someone's mind? Sometimes such an opportunity can afford you a fresh view of your own family and what you really have within your family. No individual is perfect and no family is perfect and it is probably more rare to find perfect family anyway. Often you find a friend who grew up in an incredibly complex childhood but never blames once upon his or her past. But on the other hand, some people blame everything that is wrong now on everyone else or everything else in the past. I probably used to blame my father or my parents' rocky relationship or presence of a significant alcoholism and associated unsolvable financial problems that plagued my early years for who I am and what is lacking in me. I thought that the reason why I can' not trust someone in a certain way is because I did not grow up seeing a human trust between two significa...

One of the blessing we have in our lives is that we all love music as a family.....None of us are proficient in any stretch of an imagination but we all enjoy it. I personally have to have true professional performance experience once in a while to feel alive. I am very excited to know that I have tickets bought for James Galway's flute concert in New Orleans shortly.....Can't wait. I think I was quite spoiled in that I grew up in a city where Galway or Rampal appeared regularly. If one was not there one year, another one was... Vienna boys choir was another one that I remember visiting my city frequently. Berlin Phil, Bernstein, Perlman were all very familiar names growing up, although we could not afford these famous performers' concerts that often. Out of my mother's tight budget, she took us to "real" concerts, performed by Nagoya or Tokyo philharmonic orchestra type thing. It was a major sacrifice but she believed that it enriched us. I always remember t...

Cold icicles that hang over the roof appeared as though my house was weeping. So were all the plants out side of my home. As much as I enjoyed seeing the beautifully sculpted icy art pieces, something left me with a bit of sadness reminding me of those moments that I wished that my tears would freeze. A preventable series of errors left my father brain dead and it led to subsequent death. It was interesting to find an article on Mortality, Morbidity section of the Agency of Health Care Research and Qualify website today that depicts a case reminiscent of my father's case. Except that this case described how the patient was resuscitated successfully thanks to the emergency bedside tracheostomy. That was a luxury my father was not provided for even though he begged for it before he lost his consciousness, due mostly to the inadequately prepared physician on call. He had no idea that someone who could not perform this tracheostomy would be on call the night he endured 8 hour surger...

As I write this, Erik is tackling yet another new music that is quite difficult, I wont' lie, I would just look at it and close the book... We don't know yet, if this piece is too difficult for him at this point but he would tell us.... When a new piece is in front of him, occasionally he is overwhelmed and it becomes a teary session. I think he is tired at the end of the day, too. But he had so much fun putting a lamp we purchased today and also a shelf to use in one of our closets. Now, he moved on to the hymn arrangement for Easter that he found last week. This one is out of an advance level hymn arrangement book but not nearly as complex as the classical piece he is facing giving him some much needed room to breathe. Closets are actually a notoriously forgotten spaces in the homes. There is SO much space wasted in many closets, I admit, at least in my own experience in the 17 yrs that I owned a home at various places... The fact that I have never invested enough for wise ...

My muscle is SORE, I over did it.... What did I over do? When I was screwing a nail in the wall, it hit something,, and I had to really put some force.. I could not get it in all the way on my own and I had to ask Sven to finish it. My house REALLY needed deep, deep cleaning. Since last fall, my involvement with the Japanese health care organizations and educational establishments has completely absorbed me with its demand and I let things go.. Quite a bit of it,, I am slowly working toward restoring my house one room at a time. I worked on my bedroom and master bath last week and I put Erik's room back in shape over the weekend with his help and input. Now, I have my office to tackle as well as the bedroom next to erik's room that was called, "music room" at one point... Sure, if funding is not an issue, I would hire someone to redesign the entire kitchen and complete the surface work on the floor etc but I am not a millionaire. While I was moving things around a...

Erik hopped in the car when I picked him up from school and excitedly informed me that he won the first place in geography section of the social studies fair and that he is advancing to the regional...OK that is great... He came home with another thing today... His science teacher asked him about literary rally that host students to compete in various subject... .his science teacher chose Erik to compete in Biology... and this competition covers areas that has not been covered in science class yet ant that he needs to read and study extra to get ready for this competition,,,, and his math teacher included Erik in the 4 students from Cedar Creek who will compete at Math Count competition,,,,,I have no clue about these things....... SO, he is tied up on so many saturdays for these competitions.... But Erik said, he wants to do it. I dont'. I am working in Nashville for some if those weekend,,,, like the one for the Biology.... Erik said, I want you to be in town for Piano Competition...