Feeling Grateful Even at the Hectic End of the Year! - Keeping a Positive Outlook with All of Life’s Happenings

Every day is getting to be so busy. I can feel the end of the year approaching. I was in Onagawa yesterday working over the weekend, and now I find myself in Tanegashima. I woke up in the middle of the night, realized that I had to go to Tokushima this evening, so then I started to prepare for another trip. They say that the early bird gets the worm, but when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. like today, let’s just say that I’m not ready for the world yet at 3 am. Knowing that I would not be able to get rid of my fatigue, I said to myself, “Oops, I haven’t written my weekly message yet!” and I started hurriedly writing in the wee hours of the morning.

In addition to the hectic flow of my days, an incident happened to my family yesterday. My 21-year-old second son, who is temporarily back from the States where he studies, has an incurable disease called ankylosing myelitis, and he has been producing a lot of black stools. There was a time when I once had my office inside a hospital in the States back in the 1980’s, so now I guess I somehow have learned a thing or two more about medical care than most people. My mind immediately thought that my son’s black stools were likely due to hemorrhoids or colon cancer with a 90% chance that it was hemorrhoids.

He wants to be a professional gamer, and because of his ankylosing myelitis, he hasn’t been working out and he usually spends most of his time sitting in a chair playing games. This can be a factor in accelerating the progression of colon cancer. Furthermore, his maternal grandmother had colon cancer and this makes his risk even higher. I went to bed thinking that the probability could even be 50:50.

However, when I was about to wrap myself up in my blanket to fall asleep, I started to wonder about the connection with his myelitis. I thought I had heard about this complication with colon cancer or something... Then I fell asleep but woke up at 3:00 am. Why must the big three always plague me!! My concern was not completely correct, but I found out that a disease called ulcerative colitis causes black stools and was also one of the complications for ankylosing myelitis. He has another 90% chance that he has an incurable disease called ulcerative colitis.

Therefore, an endoscope will be used to find out if it’s cancer, an ulcer, or hemorrhoids, but I’m thinking it could be ulcerative colitis. If this is the case, then he is going to be receiving daily medication for the rest of his life. He has been taking Loxonin daily to kill the pain in his lower back after developing rigid myelitis. On top of that, he will have to take multiple medicines to cure his colitis. This is also a heavy burden for the young man, but it has to be done. If he can learn to just be grateful to be alive, more doors will open for him in the future.

Humans are living, breathing beings. When we are born and when we die is entirely in God’s hands. This is why we need to live our lives to the fullest, enjoy life to the fullest, eat delicious food every day, and be thankful for it. I think that disease and greed are the two things that hinder this simple thought. Both are great enemies and have the power to rob people’s lives of their happiness. To overcome them, faith, wisdom, and knowledge are essential. These thoughts wake me up in the middle of the night and they even start to make me feel sick.

After all, if I could sleep 5-6 hours every night, I would be so happy. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the end of the year, I have been trying to get my engine running again before it becomes useless, but after arriving at Tanegashima yesterday, I suddenly decided to take a flight to Osaka Itami Airport this afternoon to go to Tokushima not only for my son’s sickness but my joints are aching, too. Fortunately, a direct flight from Tanegashima to Itami had just launched three days ago, so I am hopeful that I will be able to arrive in Tokushima late in the evening.

Since my office is in Tokushima and I had to go there before the end of the year anyway, I have no regrets about leaving Tanegashima a day early. I will only stay in Tanegashima for 19 hours, but if I hop around the island as much as I can, I will be able to do everything that I wanted to do before I leave. I can only think positively for now. I have no time to waste on negative thinking. Everything will work out. Everything will eventually go well! I am grateful that I will be able to spend the end of the year with this positive thought in my mind.