I'm a Japanese housewife living in Japan. I'm in my 60's. I want to know daily lives in the world, so at first I'll tell my daily. What is your daily life?
Today, we got the results of Yuki’s genomic testing.
We had heard that there was only about a 10% chance that they would find something that could lead to another treatment. And, amazingly, Yuki turned out to be one of that 10%. They found one anticancer drug that could potentially be used.
However, the side effects are expected to be quite strong, and we decided not to take it because we don’t want to lower Yuki’s quality of life any further.
To tell the truth, we had expected that they wouldn’t find anything. And we had already talked about the possibility that, even if they found another drug, we probably wouldn’t choose any more aggressive treatment.
After discussing it with his doctors, we decided together not to have the treatment. I think we should give ourselves credit for making this decision together. But somehow, now that it’s all settled, I feel like all the tension has suddenly left me, and I’m completely drained.
by Yuki
Anyway, on a completely different note, Yuki has reached an amazing milestone with his YouTube music.
He has now posted 1,000 songs!
His appointment at the hospital was in the afternoon today, so before that, we went out for steak to celebrate reaching 1,000 songs.
Non-alcoholic beer and wine are becoming more popular, but there are very few non-alcoholic versions of sake or shochu. This time, we found this non-alcoholic shochu online. So far, only one sake company makes this kind of product.
Yuki has started having a non-alcohol day every other day.
I think that’s a good thing. I hope his blood test results stay stable for as long as possible.
But here’s the funny thing: this non-alcoholic shochu is actually more expensive than the regular shochu he usually drinks!
It’s been quite a while since I last updated my diary. Somehow, the two of us are getting by.
Yesterday, the “Everything for 100 Yen Giveaway Sale,” which we held in a corner of Café Karaku, came to an end. To my surprise, we sold almost everything!
Yuki’s fishing gear set and other small items were all sold, too. The books that were left over were taken straight to a secondhand bookstore.
I feel like we’ve let go of so many things, and yet somehow, the house looks exactly the same.
I read a book by someone who has been through lung cancer. The title isLiving Through Cancer: Neither Pessimistic nor Optimistic. I thought it was a very well-chosen title.
At the moment, the author’s lung cancer has disappeared, so I imagine that “neither pessimistic nor optimistic” refers to living with the fear of recurrence or metastasis.
For me, though, I want to stay “neither pessimistic nor optimistic” though it is from a slightly different reason. I want to face things calmly and realistically, without leaning too far in either direction. Although “calm” may not be quite the right word.
In Japanese, we have an expression, kimottama-kāsan, which describes a strong, down-to-earth mother who doesn’t get easily shaken by what happens. I suppose what I want is to be like that—steady, strong, and not easily rattled.
My older daughter is on her way here by car. She has a work meeting here this afternoon.
I think this is the first time she’s had a work meeting here locally. Well, it’s just a meeting, so I don’t know if it will actually lead to any real work.
After all, prices in Tokyo and prices here are quite different.
And since this is considered “her hometown,” I’m guessing her travel expenses won’t be covered.
Anyway, it looks like we’ll be able to have lunch together. But she’s caught in traffic right now, so even that is a little uncertain.
Apparently, it was pouring in Tokyo until a little while ago.
P.S. She says she’ll stop by and show her face, so… what do you think her soft-hearted parents (that’s us) are going to do?
After all these cloudy or rainy days we finally have a sunny day. But it looks like it’s going to rain again tomorrow.
As soon as we got up this morning, we aired out our futon, and the washing machine is already on its second load. I can finally wash the sheets! This will probably be the last time we use the summer sheets this year, so I’m planning to switch to the autumn ones today.
Apparently, this September has had the fewest hours of sunshine we’ve ever had compared with other years.
Anyway, I’m fine that I can start this week by getting some work done around the house first thing in the morning.
It has been raining day after day, so I’ve been drying our laundry indoors. I’ve been using our old dehumidifier on the “clothes drying” setting, but, hmm... it doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job.
The things that stay damp the longest are mostly cotton clothes. So I’ve also been ironing some of them while they’re still damp.
The cotton clothes I’m talking about are actually cotton T-shirts that Yuki wears both as underwear and as pajamas. This summer, we switched them to polyester because they were easy to wear and looked pretty good. But, oh dear... we had forgotten for a while that he has sensitive skin. He started getting a rash, so we quickly switched everything back to cotton.
We bought about ten of these cotton T-shirts, but they just won’t dry completely.
This morning, we went to a laundromat first thing and dried them there. But it’s funny—once we brought them home and the heat from the dryer wore off, they started absorbing moisture from the air again!
So, that’s how I’ve been spending my morning—running around doing this and that.
I don’t have any particular plans to go anywhere, but this weather makes me feel unsteady. Well, there’s not much point in complaining about the weather, I suppose.
In a way, this might be perfect weather for housecleaning. But I can’t clean the outside of the windows because I never know when it’s going to rain. That’s a shame, especially since I’m renting that window-cleaning robot.
So I thought, “Okay, then. I’ll clean just one shelf of the refrigerator.”
I took everything out and removed the shelf, but then I discovered... something had apparently been spilled way at the back inside the refrigerator, and there was some sticky, dried-on mess.
Wiping it with a cloth wasn’t enough at all. I scraped off as much as I could with a little spatula, and then used hot water, an old toothbrush, and even a toothpick to get the rest out.
Even I managed to get it done somehow...
Since I only cleaned one shelf, I have no idea what the other parts of the refrigerator are like. But well, that’s enough for today.
Oh dear, it’s already lunchtime!
Maybe cleaning the refrigerator somehow switched my autonomic nervous system back on? I feel a little better now.
But maybe I’ll take a nap this afternoon.
I wonder which comes first: will there come a time when I stop caring about things like this, or will there come a time when I can no longer do them?
My husband Yuki and I live in a regional city. Our retirement life has state since 2020. Though Something good, exciting, worried or bad often happens, we try to focus the current situation and spend enjoyable days while living offf our savings little by little carefully.
