Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning

Yesterday was a tough day. Today, I looked around and felt this house was too big just for me. And I am not willing to cook well because who eats my meal is me only.

Yesterday, my mother was hospitalized. She was diagnosed to have a cerebral infarction.

I found something was wrong three days ago. In the supper, she could not drink well grape juice. In order to prevent aspiration, we have cheers of fruits juice at the beginning of supper every night to make her throat smooth. But she couldn’t do the series of motion; touching her lip to the glass, tilting the glass, and sipping juice. It seemed that she couldn’t use her mouth for opening, chewing, and swallowing. I became suspicious of cerebral infarction, so I told her to wave her both hands. It seemed to me, both hands moved evenly. In retrospect, this could have affected my decision about her condition.

The following day was two days ago. It was obvious that she couldn’t eat breakfast well. I thought I needed to take her to a clinic. On that day, Thursday, two of three clinics in my village open only in morning hours, and close in the afternoon. I totally regret that I didn’t take her to one of two, where we take medical checks every year. In the afternoon, I told her that I was going to take her to the clinic that was only one clinic opening on Thursday afternoon. But she refused. She said she didn’t want to catch influenza by going to the place where many sick people were, and said she just wanted to sleep. I said her body might be cold in the next morning, but still, she didn’t want to go to the clinic.

And, yesterday. Her right-hand holing chopsticks were shaking in breakfast. She couldn’t swallow meal and said those foods were not tasty. She also realized that something terribly wrong　herself. When I said to her that we were leaving our house, she was arranging flowers. Because there were a lot of flowers in the house because the seventh-year commemoration of my deceased father has just recently passed. Such her action made me think that she was still okay, but in fact, she was not okay.

The doctor in the clinic told us to go see a neurosurgery specialist immediately. He didn’t write a letter of introduction nor ask any medical treatment fee. The doctor suggested two neurosurgery clinics nearby (though several miles away from my village). I made a phone call to one of them, and made an appointment at 1 p.m. Since I don’t have a car, we went to there by taxi.

In the second clinic, MRI test started at 1:30. The neurosurgeon called us at around 2p.m. What he showed us was cross-section images of my mother’s brain. In the center, but on right side, there was a small bright area. He said that she got a cerebral infarction. And He also said he was going to call on an ambulance car to move her to the large hospital. I quickly paid the fee of 4,930 JPY (approx.32USD), and got on the ambulance in which my mother has already been laid on the transport bed.

The ambulance got to the large hospital before 3 in the afternoon. While she was getting treatments, I had to sign on a lot of paper. After that, I am not sure what time was it, I went to her bedside. She was conscious, able to speak though very slowly, laying on the hospital bed. Still, I needed to do paperwork for her hospitalization. And there were a lot of questions on paper which only my mother could answer. I asked her, she answered to me, and I fill the blanks on questionnaire. And then her supper was brought to the table on her bed. I told her to eat well, because she didn’t eat well in the morning, and had eaten nothing since then. Time was already 7p.m., I left the large hospital, took a bus for JR Niigata station, and got on a local train.

I found breakfast remain on the table when I got my home. There were one of two quarter-size toasts, omelet, and Natto (fermented soy beans) on the plate. I ate the toast, but threw omelet and Natto to the garbage. Then, I needed to cook my supper. But I didn’t want to cook.

“I am not willing to cook well just only for me”. This was what I thought last night and in this morning. There is someone who eats my cooking, therefore I want to cook. Hospitalization of my mother has just started, and it will take many weeks or even months until she comes back my home. Although my cooking is not good Japanese cuisine, I want to cook meals for my mother again.