Bedlets: Or, I Hope, the Last Time I'll Ever Blog About Bodily Functions

If you can't stomach a little toilet humor, feel free to skip this entry. Apologies in advance.

A while back, I wrote about my uncomfortable hospital bed. It was so hard and small that I had to put two together, which might have worked if they weren't an inch or two apart in height. During my three years here in Japan, I've had my fair share of experiences with beds.

Japanese people have traditionally slept on thin bedrolls called futons, which are much different than the futons I saw back home. Japanese futons aren't cheap, couch-like pieces of furniture that starving college students sleep on. They're basically 1 or 2 inch-thick mats that go on the tatami floors and are covered by some kind of sheet. People typically have a blanket--either a comforter a bit wider than the futon, or a beach towel-ish blanket called a towelket (a Japanese portmanteau of "towel" and "blanket"). While many people have adopted western-style beds, the majority still use futons, due in part to a lack of space in Japanese homes. Beds take up a lot of space, and can't be stuffed into the closet during the day to open up a room.

As a solution, many Japanese people purchase sofa beds. They aren't like the old sofa beds I knew growing up, where the bed folds away into a cavity underneath the couch cushions. Instead, they are typically low to the ground (like most Japanese furniture intended for sitting) and have adjustable backs, which can change from what's close to a 90% angle to a fully reclined, flat position. While not as comfortable as a pillow-top mattress with a box spring, they are often more comfortable than just sleeping on the glorified blanket otherwise known as a futon.

Last year, when Mom and Rory came to visit, they bought a sofa bed at Hard Off, a thrift store chain with a well-stocked location close to our apartment. It was a bit of a tight fit for them, but they managed to sleep better than they would have on the futons we had provided. When they left, we tried to use it as a bed, but it was a little too narrow for our liking. If we had another one about the same height, we figured, we could put them together, lay some futons on top of them, and basically have a California king bed in our room. It worked in theory.

When we actually got the second sofa bed and got it home, we found that it was actually about three inches higher than the old one. No problem, we thought. All we had to do was put another futon or two on lower one, and they'd be just about even. Doing just that, we made it work for a while, though one side of the massive bed was always firmer than the other. Eventually we got tired of the complete lack of space in our bedroom and decided that a change was in order.

We put the firmer and taller of the two sofa beds up into sofa position, and pushed it against the paper doors (partly to hide the giant holes that our kids ripped in them), moving the other one up against the base of it. We stacked the futons on to make it level, and put our pillows on the sofa section. While that configuration was quite wide, it unfortunately wasn't long enough for me. I even tried a diagonal position, but my feet always ended up on the ground. I felt like Ned from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

Who am I? My name is Ned.

I do not like my little bed.

This is no good.

This is not right.

My feet stick out of bed all night.

And when I pull them in, Oh, dear!

My head sticks out of bed up here!

We ended up sleeping vertically on the lower bed, with one of us lying up against the crevice between the two beds. It was actually quite comfortable. When Mom came out last month, however, we gave her the lower bed back and kept the other one in sofa form, electing to sleep directly on the futons. It's not so bad--we sleep pretty well most of the time.

We find it a hassle to put our futons away every day, so we leave them out. This attracts all sorts of dirt and crumbs from the kids, which gets quite annoying. Also frustrating is the fact that it's much harder to get out of a bed that's laying directly on the floor than one that you can just roll out of.

Japanese people customarily sit directly on tatami (or on a zabuton, an inch-thick square mat), which I can't stand, having grown up with plush carpet and comfortable sofas. With kids, I have to be ready to get up and help at the drop of a hat. It's difficult for me to do that when I'm laying or sitting on the ground. Being such a tall guy, it takes precisely 3.74 seconds for my brain to communicate to my heart that it actually needs some blood to function. Getting up too quickly causes me to black out; I don't actually faint, but everything goes black and I momentarily lose my inhibitions. Just ask Stef or Mom--I say some pretty silly stuff in the 5-some seconds before the blood makes it to my brain.

Stef and I both agree that it will be nice to have furniture once we get back. Couches, comfortable beds, and carpet--these are all things for which the typical ex-pat yearns. We are no exception. It's neat that, as a whole, the Japanese cherish their past. But it seems so striking that in this country where technology is king, people still sleep on the floor and have paper doors.

Then there's the issue of toilets. Ah, toilets--perhaps the most stark reminder of Japan's dual nature. On one side, you've got squatters. Holes in the ground. Holes in the ground above which you must squat. There's no way to lessen the stomach-churning imagery that arises when you think of or say the word "squatter."

We've got an old apartment, so we're stuck with a squatter. It's actually a step up from the ground, and there's a good 3 feet between the step and the far wall, so we were able to use a plastic seat and convert it to a western-style toilet. It's not quite as comfortable as a standard toilet in America, but it's better than a hole in the ground.

Our friend Paul, who lives in the same building, is not so lucky. He's got the same configuration, minus about 2 feet of space. He's only got about a foot, so it's quite inconvenient for him to use. The following, I believe, was meant to be included in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish:

Who am I? My name is Paul.
I do not like my little stall.
This is no good.
This is not right,
It's really hard to pee at night.
And when I sit, it's knees-on-wall.
I do not like my stall at all.

Most business establishments these days have a western style toilet or two to go along with the squatters, but there are still plenty of places that have yet to upgrade. Typically, if there's no western style toilet, you can just hold it until you get somewhere else. On a train, however, there's nowhere else to go. I was once faced with the misfortune of having to use a squatter on a train. It's what I believe Sam I Am was referring to when he asked:

A train! A train!
A train! A train!
Could you, would you on a train?

No. You couldn't. You wouldn't. On a train. If there's one thing worse than having to use a squatter, it's having to use a squatter on a train. Or genocide. That's also worse. Or shredding the roof of your mouth on dozens of tiny, whole dried fish that you're forced to eat in front of the children. Okay, so there are a lot of things that are worse than using a squatter. But still, pray that you never have to use a squatter on a train.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, you've got RoboToilet (the official name is Washlet, another portmanteau). While I was staying with Mia at the hospital, I became intimately acquainted with a toilet which, if we're not careful, could likely end up enslaving the world. When I walked in the bathroom, the toilet would sense my presence and open the top lid, ready to do business. With the simple press of a button on a separate, radio-controlled panel, I could tell it that I wasn't ready for any complicated transactions and just needed it to open all the way. When the transaction was complete, it would automatically flush, and then close after a few minutes, lest it accidentally close business in the middle of a transaction.

Some of RoboToilet's other features include water sprays with adjustable trajectories and pressure levels, as well a heated seat. It's really strange to see such an advanced toilet in one place, and then in the same hospital, have a hole in the ground. No matter how many times I use the latter, it doesn't grow on me.

That's not to say that RoboToilet is perfect. RoboToilet is so environmentally conscious that the limited space inside can cause friction in our relationship. Sometimes, at night, I'm so tired that my marksmanship takes a serious hit. As a courtesy to Stef and other people living with me, I choose to sit. With RoboToilet's auto-flush feature, the lack of "depth" toward the front of the bowl leads to some serious breaches of trust. On more than one occasion, RoboToilet decided to finish the transaction early, causing an unexpected flow of frigid water to parts best left unmentioned.

Another inconvenient part of Japanese bathrooms is the need to switch shoes. People here are always switching shoes--when you walk into a home or school, you take off your shoes and put on slippers or other shoes that you only use indoors. When you go to the bathroom, however, you have to change out of the indoor shoes and into some bathroom slippers, which are always way too small for my feet. Sometimes, when the kids are cleaning the bathrooms during their designated cleaning time, they hose down the slippers as well, making for a happy little surprise when you slip your nice, dry socks into them.

Alas, school bathrooms are pretty much the worst part about working at a school. I love kids. I can deal with rowdiness. Most everything about working at schools in Japan has become enjoyable. But bathrooms remain the most difficult challenge for me. Why? It starts with the doors.

Elementary school bathrooms rarely have doors. Anyone can and will watch you go to the bathroom. There are no half-walls to buffer each urinal, and the urinals are in plain view from the doorway, which is in the main hallway. Coworkers and students, both male and female, can see you using the urinal.

To make things worse, the bathrooms for both boys and girls sometimes have the same entrance. You switch into slippers, and then go straight into the urinals right in front of you, or go around the corner to the girls' bathroom if you're female. Either way, you've got to put the slippers on in front of a row of peeing boys. That's got to be uncomfortable for the girls.

Because they're built not just for kids, but Japanese kids, they're extremely short. So short, in fact, that the top of the flusher handle, which is connected to a pipe about 5 inches above the top of the urinal, is lower than my waist. Since I'm so tall, the only way to "hide myself" from the world is to bend my knees and hunch over. Not even this keeps kids from wanting to watch me go.

Today, I was being mobbed by a crowd of excited first graders, when I realized that I had to go to the bathroom. When some of the kids seemed ready to follow me in, I elected to use the squatter stall, even if it wasn't necessary. It was not the first time I've done that--I value my privacy.

At one of my schools, we have a couple kids with learning disabilities, including one boy with Down Syndrome. One time, while I discretely used the bathroom, this sweet boy, with absolutely no ill intentions, walked right up to me and started watching me. I asked him to let me be alone for a minute, to which he responded by sticking his face up near the small space between me and the porcelain. I was so shocked by this that I stopped what I was doing, picked him up and moved him out of the bathroom, and sharply told him to return to his class.

Another time, at the same school, a different kid from the special education class (which is directly adjacent to the bathroom) came and started chatting with me while I was trying to use the bathroom.

"Hey! It's Jesse-Sensei!"

"Yep. That's me."

"Whoa, you're tall!"

"Yep. Mind if I have a moment here?"

"So, anything come out yet?"

"Not yet. And it probably won't if you're watching me. Would you please leave me be for a moment?"

Japan's openness about using the bathroom has been eye-opening. Women have no problem discussing their level of regularity--it's a common topic of conversation. I can't count how many children's books I've seen that focus on using the toilet. Everyone Poops, perhaps the most famous children's book on the subject, was originally written in Japanese. They openly talk to kids about what they need to do to ensure that the plumbing works properly.

That's not necessarily such a bad thing--it's just so different than everything I've ever known. The only time I ever feel comfortable talking about the subject is when I'm discussing my baby's diapers or children who have wet the bed. Incidentally, as I took a short break from writing this last paragraph to change my son's diaper, he peed all over me and my bed for the first time ever. Maybe the Japanese know what they're doing. Perhaps one day, the Japanese will invent the bedlet. I know my kids would use one.

Mia's Surgery Date

Mia's surgery was scheduled for the morning of April 21st. Stef got a ride to the hospital from Kris that morning, then came to Mia's room to hang out before the surgery. The doctors came soon after she got there, then ushered us to a room which acted like a hub between the surgery rooms and the main hall. We took a picture with Mia, then sent her off with the surgical team, telling her that we'd see her in a while. She showed no signs of being upset, though she surely had no idea what was going to happen, except that the doctors were going to "fix her heart".

We made our way back to Mia's room, where a pregnant Stef decided to pass the time resting. With Mia out of sight and in the doctors' hands, there was no way that I would get any rest, regardless of how tired I was from not sleeping at all the night before. Wanting to find some way to pass the time, I opened my computer and called family on Skype. It was nice to distract myself with uplifting conversation with people I love.

Even when you're able to distract yourself, you can never fully get an in-progress surgery out of your mind. I tried to stay positive, but even then, I still envisioned each gut-wrenching step of the process. About 45 minutes to an hour into the procedure, I thought, "Right now, she is probably fully prepped for the start of the procedure." I prayed that everything would go smoothly in each particular step of the surgery. That the surgeons' hands would be precise. That the heart bypass machine would work properly. That she wouldn't bleed too much and need a transfusion. 5 hours of doing that can seem like an eternity.

Before the surgery, Mia and I repeatedly watched a couple movies--Mary Poppins, and My Neighbor Totoro. Both movies focus on the innocence of children and their relationship with their father. In Totoro, two young girls who live with their dad while their mom is hospitalized run around and explore their new surroundings in rural Japan, letting their imaginations run wild. Before the surgery, Mia and Kelsey would run around and play together, much like Satsuki and Mei from Totoro, albeit a bit younger. Totoro became a big part of my life while in the hospital with Mia, as she would ask to watch it multiple times each day.

"What do you want to do?" I'd ask.
"I wanna watch... I wanna wanna watch.. Totoro!" she'd reply, likely looking for some sense of familiarity while stuck in such a strange setting.

It was either that or, "I wanna wanna watch... Mary Poppins!"
"Oh, you want to watch Mary Poppins again?"
"Yeah! Mary Poppins!"

I probably watched Mary Poppins thirty times while Mia was in the hospital, and I never got tired of it. The timeless music, performances, and themes of childhood, parenthood, compassion, and responsibility resonate with me. I can relate to the banker father who needs to be more loving and compassionate with his children. Causing me to reflect on the times when I've been less patient or understanding with my kids than I should be, watching Mary Poppins gave me ample time to consider how I can be a better dad.

Both movies provided me with plenty of chances to stave off thoughts of how I would deal with the loss of a child. While waiting for her surgery to end, I couldn't help but hope and pray for a time when Mia and I could do simple things together, like watch a movie. I will never be able to watch either movie, or hear a single song from them without being reminded of the profound love I feel toward my children. I hope they do and always will know that I love them.

The doctor contacted us about an hour and a half before I had expected. Mia's surgery had finished without any complications, and she was recovering in the ICU. He invited us to take a look at her. They said she'd likely spend a couple days in the ICU before being transferred back to the PHCU room where she had been before the operation.

In the ICU, Mia was sedated on a hospital bed with various tubes going into her chest, throat, and inner thigh. They left the breathing machine on for the first while so that she could ease back into using her lungs. The doctor showed us the incision on her chest, which he had intentionally made smaller than usual, and was quite a bit smaller than I had anticipated. She hadn't lost much blood during the operation, and so they hadn't needed to perform a blood transfusion (and wouldn't need to, provided that she didn't develop dangerous levels of anemia).

Stef and I asked permission to take a picture of her, then left so that they could keep administering her post-surgery treatment.

The day before Mia's surgery, I had made arrangements to stay at a special housing place for family members of patients. We expected her to be in the ICU for two nights, the second of which I would spend at the family housing place. Making arrangements was actually quite the ordeal. They sent a representative to the PHCU before the surgery to meet with me and verify with the hospital staff that my child was actually hospitalized. After filling out multiple forms (seriously, how involved does it have to be?), the housing rep explained that I'd need to contact them again during business hours the day I was going to stay. They wanted to show me exactly how to get to the building, and weren't content with drawing a map.

The next day, I had an appointment at the insurance center in Imabari, so Stef and I planned to go back home after the surgery. The hospital staff had given me information about supplemental aid from the city for children who have surgery or disabilities, and I had to go back to fill out paperwork. My appointment was set for 1 in the afternoon, so it was doubtful that I'd be back in time to meet up with the housing people. Given that I would need a place to sleep the next night, I was pretty stressed about making it back in time.

On the way out to the train station, Dr. Fumiaki Shikata, one of the members of the surgical team, accompanied us. He wanted to point us in the direction of the family housing complex, but actually ended up taking me directly to it. I called the housing rep and explained that I knew exactly where it was, and asked them to leave the key at the front desk of the PHCU.

In the end, it was all moot. The next morning, the doctor called to tell me that Mia was recovering quickly and was ready to be transferred back to the PHCU after just one night in the ICU. Also, I don't know how necessary it was to get that aid, since Mia's hospital bills are fully covered until age 6 by our Japanese health insurance. Even though I may have wasted a few hundred yen and some time, it was certainly nice to sleep in my own bed that night.

I needed the rest for what was about to come.

Leading Up to Surgery

We checked in on April 18th, had some tests on that day and the 19th, and met with the surgeons on the 19th. April 21st was the scheduled surgery date, and they needed to monitor Mia for a few days before hand and go through all of the insurance paperwork. The 20th was supposed to be a relaxing day, but it was quite possibly the most stressful day of my entire life.

The night of the 19th was a long one. The day before, Mia had some tests scheduled for the afternoon, so the doctors made her skip her nap so that she would be asleep when they wanted to do the tests. They gave her medicine at 4 in the afternoon, but it was taking some time to kick in. Had they been willing to wait a few more minutes, she would have fallen asleep; they instead gave her a second dose of the sleeping medicine, and she was out at 4:30. She slept for 5 hours, waking up at 9:30 and not sleeping until after midnight, meaning that no matter how tired I was, I couldn't sleep until after then. I ended up getting about three hours of sleep that night.

In order to keep tabs on Mia's vitals, they hooked her up to a bunch of different devices, including a heart monitor, an oxygen sensor, and an IV drip. She was very calm throughout everything, and didn't even cry when they took blood. The nurses were all very impressed with her toughness. The hardest part about having her hooked up to all the tubes was that she still had a ton of energy and wanted to run faster than I could move the equipment.

The PHCU had a play area with a padded floor and some books for kids to read, with a mural of fish on the wall. Mia would run over to the fish and tell me which fish was Mia's fish, which was Kelsey's fish, which was Daddy's fish, and which was Mommy's fish. Something about the fish must have reminded her of us, because she was very consistent about whose fish was which. The hallway leading from the main hospital wing to the PHCU was lined with colorful decals of human feet, which Mia liked to call "duck feet", in reference to "I Wish That I Had Duck Feet", a book we own which was written by Dr. Seuss under the pen name of Theo LeSieg and illustrated by someone else. Up until the surgery date, we could go on walks anywhere in the hospital--after the surgery, we'd have to stay in the PHCU and couldn't go past the "duck feet".

When I wasn't taking Mia around for different tests or going on walks, I was hanging around the room with Mia looking to rest. This was next to impossible, as nurses and doctors kept popping their heads in the room to explain some other disclosure or give me more Japanese paperwork to fill out. Doctors even brought medical students by to see the American patient. I'm sure that it's common for the students to visit patients, but it seemed a bit odd when, on the day before the surgery, more than 25 people (not including me or Mia) all crammed into our small room to see Mia. When you haven't slept for a few days and you're expecting a day of relaxation, it's a bit unnerving to have to deal with a constant stream of people you weren't expecting to have to see.

The talk with the chief surgeon was frightening. He is a very nice man and was very eager to make me feel comfortable, but it's hard to be totally at peace when you are hearing about the dangers of open heart surgery. No matter how hard you try to push the thought of tragedy out of your mind--regardless of the greater-than-98% success rate of the surgery--it's impossible as a parent not to worry that your child might fall into the "less than two percent" of ASD surgery patients who don't make it. When the doctor explains how the heart-lung machine works, and that it will be necessary for them to physically stop your child's heart, there's nothing that can you can do to completely eliminate worry and stress.

Sparing no details, he explained the procedure from start to finish. The procedure itself would take three or four hours from start to finish, with about an hour of preparation time sandwiched around the surgery. First, they would make an incision in her chest, and then cut the sternum underneath to reach the heart. After hooking her up to the heart-lung machine and making an incision in the heart, they would search for the hole, stitch it shut, and then close her up again. He explained the risks of each stage of the surgery and mentioned that about 80% of those who receive ASD surgery require a blood transfusion, which in and of itself carried all sorts of risks.

Of course, they needed me to give my consent for everything, and I was quick to provide it. Anything that they needed to do to help Mia, I thought, was fair game. The nurses and doctors kept asking me if Stef was going to be there on the surgery date, and I kept answering that she would as long as she didn't go into labor. The last thing I wanted was for the stress of everything to cause Stef to go into premature labor again, so I did everything I could to shoulder all the stress. I even avoided telling Stef that they would have to stop Mia's heart for the procedure. In retrospect, it was silly to think that she wouldn't already know, given her medical background. The thought of Stef not being able to be with me during Mia's surgery and me not being with Stef for the birth was just too much, so I did all I could to remain positive.

The night before the surgery, Mia started a fast so that there wouldn't be any excess waste in her body, which can interfere with surgery. She wasn't very hungry for dinner that night, but I painstakingly fed her every last bite, knowing that she might not get to eat for a while.

When your daughter is going to have major surgery, it's impossible to look at even simple events in the same way. You don't know if it's going to be the last time you feed her dinner, read her a book, tickle her, sing a song to her, or go on a walk. Every moment becomes one to cherish--you just want to hold on to her and never let go. But there comes a time when you have to put her fate in the hands of the surgical staff and hope. And pray.

The night before the surgery, during our nightly family Skype call, Stef seemed a bit upset. She was having contraction-like pain and was afraid that the baby might come early. While talking to Stef, I kept a level head and suggested that she head in to her doctor to make sure that it wasn't labor contractions. After all, it's better to get sent home for a false alarm than not go when you need to and have nobody to take you. We called the clinic, and they said that, based on her symptoms, it was likely that they would admit her to the clinic to have the baby. We were crushed. I remained positive on the phone, hoping to calm Stef's nerves--but once I got off the phone, I was a wreck.

I needed someone there with me. I needed Stef there. All I could do was plead on my hands and knees that Stef's doctor would send her back home. I walked to the nurse station and fought back tears as I told them that Stef might not be able to come for Mia's surgery. Though I was terrified, I didn't want to call her and seem anxious about the whole situation, as that wouldn't exude the confidence that I was trying to project. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, I got a call from Stef--she was coming home!

Excited, I informed the nurses of the development and went back to my room to get on my knees and offer thanks that Stef was OK. As I sobbed with gratitude, letting my emotions spill out, a nurse came into the room to ask me something. I sprung to my feet and hit the pause button on my prayer, and finished it after the nurse left the room. She asked if I was OK before she left, and I explained that I was just thanking God that everything was OK.

I prayed a lot that night, as well as the next day--Mia's surgery date.

The Hospital Room

The night before leaving for the hospital, I packed a large suitcase full of clothes, books, toys and personal electronics. I figured I'd have a decent amount of time for language study while Mia recovered in her hospital room. I tried to get all of the paperwork ready, but couldn't find Mia's insurance card, which I had last seen at Mia's previous hospital appointment weeks earlier. Hours of combing through every nook and cranny of our apartment proved futile, so I called the hospital help line and made sure that we'd be able to check in without our insurance card.

The next morning, Kris, our Canadian friend and neighbor, drove me and Mia out to the hospital. We took a mountain road which I had never taken before, and got to the hospital in good time. Kris held Mia as I checked in and tried to explain to the receptionist that I had lost the insurance card. As grateful as I was for Kris' help, I admit that it felt a little strange to feel everyone's eyes on us, likely thinking that we were a couple. Once everything was sorted out, they directed us to the 3rd wing of the second floor of the hospital, the Pediatric High Care Unit.

In Japan, any child's non-ICU hospital stay requires a parent or guardian to stay with the child at all times. There's no full care like there is back home. While I'm sure that helps keep costs low, it sure is nerve-wracking to feel like your own child's well-being while in the hospital is in your hands--especially when you're not sleeping or stressed out for other reasons (which I'll get to later). When I got to the PHCU, I talked to the nurse at the front desk, who offered to show us to our room.

Kris had told me that each of her children got private rooms when they had procedures done at that hospital and stayed in the PHCU. When the nurse ushered us into a room with four sliding curtains to section off "rooms", I started sweating. It got worse when one of the three other patients staying in the room, a little girl under two years of age, started screaming. I looked at the space available in the curtained-off section and my nervousness turned to despair.

There was no way that a bed large enough to fit me would fit into that space. Even if there were a way, there would be no way that I could sleep for two to three weeks with nothing more than a curtain to separate us from potentially three crying children. More importantly, there was no way that Mia would feel comfortable in such a setting.

"This will not work. There is no way. No way," I repeated to myself and Kris as I desperately searched for a solution to the plan. I went to the PHCU desk and asked the head nurse if there were any private rooms available. I was willing to pay if it came down to it. I referred to the hospital information guide that I had received at the front desk, which contained info about private rooms starting at 3000 yen per night. "Sorry, there aren't any of those left," replied the nurse. Not willing to let things be unless they absolutely had to, I mustered the best "worried" face I could and mentioned that I thought that it "might be a bit difficult" to make that room work. The nurse walked away and, after a few minutes, came back with a solution--a private room that was completely empty, but was being used for some other purpose. To top it off, it didn't cost me any extra.

Why they weren't using that room wasn't exactly clear--it's possible that they keep all the patients in the same room to make it easier for them to keep watch. Regardless, I was grateful that they were willing to accomodate me, even if it was clear that I was seen as a bit of a nuisance. After I moved all of our stuff into the private room and said goodbye to Kris, I went down to the basement floor of the hospital to get my bed.

When you stay with a patient, you have to rent all your bedding from the hospital. They won't let you bring any sort of bedroll or blankets, and they clearly make money off of the whole process. Knowing this beforehand, I decided to bring a blanket and pillow anyway, because I knew that I'd have a hard time sleeping on the bags full of rocks that they call pillows. I told the lady down at the bedding rental desk that I didn't need anything but the bed, and they gave me a six foot-long plywood foldout mat with sliver-thin vinyl facing masquerading as a cushion.

There's a problem with six foot-long plywood foldout mats with sliver-thin vinyl facing--and not just that they're as hard as a rock and less broad than my shoulders. They're six feet long. And I'm longer. Much longer. I set it up in the room and tested it to see if I'd be able to sleep on it, and immediately knew that I was in for a rough three weeks. I sheepishly asked the nurse if there was any other solution, and mentioned that I was willing to pay for anything suitable. They brought me another folding bed like the one I had, and told me that they wouldn't charge me for it. I placed them side-by-side and saw that one was about an inch taller than the other. I couldn't lay in the middle of them because of the ridge, so laying diagonally across both beds was the only option, and even that didn't seem to be very comfortable.

I brought my laptop with me hoping that I'd be able to get an internet connection. The hospital offers an free wired connection from 6 AM until 9 PM, outside of which hours you get a message telling you that you need to come back later. When I hooked my computer up, I couldn't even get the welcome screen to pop up. The room truly had not been set up for patient use, so the internet was not yet functional. They sent a networking expert down to get the room set up for future internet use. We spent about an hour trying to get the connection up and running, but couldn't seem to get the network to issue an IP address in that room.

That afternoon, Mia had some tests, including a blood test, a heart ultrasound (echocardiogram), and a chest X-ray. I had to leave to take care of that, but told them that they could work on it without me there if they so desired. When we got back from the tests, the computer was connected to the hospital network's welcome screen, ready for me to enter in a username and password. I was ecstatic to have an internet connection, but sure that I wouldn't be able to Skype, since I figured that it the hospital blocked the ports necessary to use it. To my surprise, even Skype worked.

I feel really fortunate to live in this day and age, where I can talk to and even see people that are far away as though they're right next to me. It was a life saver to be able to see Kelsey and Stef, and have them video chat with Mia. As long as it wasn't after 9 PM or before 6 AM. There must have been someone manually flipping an internet switch every morning and night, because I got the "outside of usage hours" message all the way until about 6:45 AM every day, and it didn't actually get disconnected until some time around 9:45 at night. It would have been nice to have the connection all the time, because I typically couldn't get much done while Mia was awake. When I had the most free time for study or blogging, the internet was unavailable. Still, I'm glad that I had it during the day, as it helped to keep me occupied for the first couple of weeks.

That first night was not a good night. All out of medicine for my rhino-sinusitis (Latin for "inflammation of the rhinoceros horn stuck in your face") and unable to take my mind off of Mia's surgery and the craggy "bed", I did not sleep at all until about 5 AM, when I became so exhausted from the previous day's events that I could have slept on a bed of nails, broken glass and hot lava. Surprisingly, Mia slept through the night in her unfamiliar surroundings. I was expecting a bit more resistance from her in her prison cell hospital bed. The nurses came in at 7:30 to get us up for the day. We had more tests (including a CT scan) on the docket, as well as a meeting with the chief surgeon to explain the procedure and all its possible risks and outcomes.

During that meeting, he asked me if there were any worries or concerns I had. I admitted that I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to sleep well, since the bed was a bit small and I was out of medicine, but shrugged my shoulders and said that I'd keep on keepin' on. He asked for my height and then asked the nurse to help me find something more comfortable. They pulled an electric examination table out of one of the exam room and asked if that would be sufficient. It was just long enough, quite a bit wider, and actually had a cushion. I was thrilled--it was much better than what I had before.

I felt a little guilty about asking for stuff when the other patients' parents made do with what they were offered. I apologized profusely for inconveniencing the staff, but deep down, I was glad that I went to the trouble of asking for help. It's often true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Mia Admitted to the Hospital

On April 13, I got an e-mail from Mia's doctor at the university hospital in Matsuyama. We had been waiting to hear about her heart surgery, and began to worry that we might have to get it done after the move back to America. I had sent an extremely polite Japanese e-mail to the doctor about five weeks earlier, but didn't hear back. Tired of waiting, I contacted Mia's doctor at the local hospital and asked him for his opinion. He promised to contact the other doctor and have him contact me. A couple days later, I got this response: "How does next week sound?"

Just five days later, on April 18th, we admitted Mia to the hospital for heart surgery.

The few days leading up to her hospital stay were jam-packed with stress. First, I had to notify the board of education and each of my schools that I wouldn't be coming in to work for the next few weeks. Having previously verified that I had a month's worth of paid time off saved up, I was surprised when my request was met with a bit of resistance. One person even asked me why I didn't just have my wife stay with Mia. My wife. My 34 weeks' pregnant, non-Japanese speaking wife. Not likely.

We figured we'd know about the surgery at least a month in advance, since we would need multiple visits in order to store enough of Mia's own blood in case she needed it during or after surgery. The doctors, however, felt that having blood drawn in and of itself was taxing for a toddler, so they opted to just bypass that step and use someone else's blood in the event of a transfusion.

(Edit: May 24) Bear with me as I jump around over the next few entries. I'll try to keep everything in chronological order, but I'm going off of sparse notes that I kept while in the hospital.

Case Study

In Japan, elementary school kids often have to the same backpack as all their classmates, but they get to bring their own pencil case. I've never owned a pencil case in my life, and actually had never even considered that such a thing existed. But exist they do, and some are pretty neat. Up above is a collage of the various pencil cases in one of my class. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Changing the Past

So, Mom mentioned that she enjoys reading my blog, but it's sad that I have such a big gap in 2010. In an effort to help fill some of that gap, I'm posting some things that I wrote elsewhere during the last year or so. Some are a bit short, but I feel they add a bit to the overall narrative of my blog and Japan situation. I've posted them retroactive to the dates when I actually wrote them. Some of them fall between posts that I actually made here on this site.

Anyway, here they are, in chronological order.

One

Two
Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

As a side note, I've actually lost a lot more weight. I'm currently at about 197. In less than a year, I've lost 35 pounds.