This week was rough… On Thursday and Friday night I was too anxious about the surgery to fall asleep, so I ended up going to bed at 4 am both nights. I ended up exhausting myself and I’ve been dog-tired all weekend, even now. Hitomi’s mom emailed me afterwards to tell me the surgery went OK, so that was a relief, but I was still anxious; and the picture of Hitomi she sent me looked so painful!

Finally on Sunday I was able to go all the way to Uchinada to see her. Hitomi’s mom and I drove up together, and we got there just before noon. Hitomi’s face was about twice it’s normal size and she was in a lot of pain, but she was glad to have company. Her mom left in the afternoon and I stayed. Besides being swollen, she had two tubes implanted in her skin under her jaw to drain the bleeding, and she had to carry a container on a strap around her neck for the tubes to empty all the blood into. Kind of morbid. And her teeth are wired shut and she has a plastic thingie cementing them in place for now so she doesn’t move her jaw muscles. I found out a bit more about the surgery: They cut two small holes under her jaw and cut the muscles off of her left jaw. Then they shaved the outer (hard) layer of bone off her left jaw, exposing the marrow, and re-attached the muscles to that. I’m not sure if they went in through her neck or her mouth, and neither is she actually. Anyway, that’s why she can’t move her mouth at all; she’s growing a new jaw.

She was on a morphine drip, though she said the only thing that helped were the butt rockets (I can attest to that from my surgery — butt rockets are the best painkillers). She wasn’t able to eat liquid food either so she had an IV drip as well. Today, however, she was able to eat a bit of blended jelly and soup, so she got the IV out, and in the afternoon she stopped the morphine drip and they doctors removed the blood tubes from her jaw and the blood bag from around her neck. So finally now she is looking more relaxed. We got some x-rays done as well, but mostly just had a relaxed day. She has a nice view of the ocean from her window. She’s still in pain, but she was doing a lot better today than she was yesterday. She can answer her emails now and walk around, and she tried really hard to mumble a few words today.

I stayed at my host parents’ house in Nishikanazawa. I hadn’t seen them since November ’07, so it was really good to visit them again. We had dinner at a small yakiniku shop where they also took me during my homestay in 2004. This was the first time I was able to really have a complete conversation with them, and it was really nice to be able to do that. Their health seemed to be a bit better than it was last time I visited, but they’re in their mid-80′s now. Hopefully I’ll get to see them at least one more time in the coming weeks as I go up to Uchinada again on the weekends.

Like I said, I worried myself sick over the weekend, and I have to start work again tomorrow with a crappy cold and still feeling exhausted. And it’s a really busy week too…