Prologue II

This is the second prologue before the trip to Japan starts. If it wasn’t enough stress just to go on this ordeal, I had the additional worry about my MRI results regarding my back. I wasn’t too bothered when the first MRI demanded a follow-up, but I became a bit concerned when the second showed a “lesion” on my spine, and then I became more concerned after the third MRI that was done this last Saturday. My attitude drifted from “I don’t want to think about it. I’m too healthy to be sick.” to “It’s a good thing that I have a will.” When I was feeling down, waves of stress swept over me as if I was the Titanic taking the plunge and I waited for the attack that I am so familiar. Yes, there have been times in the past that I thought, through the lens of anxiety; death was dragging me out the door. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay in bed convinced that I wasn’t going to see the sun rise. When I had my first stress attack, I was so sure that I was dying I drove myself to emergency room only to be saved by a massive dose of tranquilizer, so much for a fatal case of whatever. And then there was the time when the lymph nodes under my jaw and armpits grew large for no reason that I or the doctor could figure out. His only comment was yes they are enlarged and the reason is unknown. That condition lasted for some eight months. Of course, I was positive that it was the big C, and death was just outside the door. I only had to let him in.

Well, after many calls to Kaiser (Just today I had to call radiology to get them to read the MRI before the day was over, and I called my NP …again and again and again… to find out his not in, but his back-up, Dr. Alaric Akashi, fellow Konko church member, would talk to me. Wow, I finally got to talk to a real doctor in person. And he read me the results. Are you ready for this? The lesion turned out to be, in his words, “a blip…background noise.” Can you believe that? I have been stressing over a blip. My life came to a crawl over a blip.

I must say that I have been doing some serious thinking these past weeks, and I haven’t reached any deep conclusion, no wise words regarding life. The possibility of my life ending made me feel very uncomfortable, as it did in the past. You know that Kaiser tv commercial where the young female cancer patient goes in to a store to buy a guitar and the last words thrown out is “I have cancer; cancer doesn’t have me.” She is a better person than me, Gunga Din. I have to say that it is hard to motivate yourself with the thought of death around the corner. I understand that we should live in the moment, but it’s so hard. I wonder if it’s even practical. For example, Emi and I went to Rick’s Restaurant for their last luau meal and listening to Ka’ala and the group play the sweet, melodic songs of Hawai’i was so moving, I couldn’t help but form a tear of two. And it’s not just that. Everything becomes too emotional with the thought that it’s for the last time. But living in the moment, doesn’t have to mean it’s for the last time, does it? (Just thinking aloud here.) My life is so wonderful that it is hard to say good-by to it. I went to see my minister, Kawahatsu Sensei, and he gave me words of wisdom that I will ponder over; I’m going to have a lot of time to think. If I don’t get an epiphany and if nothing else, I will, as he instructs, repeat “thank you, thank you, thank you over and over. There is so much to be thankful for….such as blips in your life.

Attached to this is a video of our walk in Bolinas to see the elks. This email is a test of our ability to send video and text from Japan.