From My Mother's Fall to Her Passing (3)

This article has 10170 characters. (Estimated reading time: about 10 minutes and 39 seconds)

Google Gemini & ChatGPT translated this article from Japanese to English.

Continues

This is the third part in the series "From My Mother's Fall to Her Passing (2)."

Each story is not a stand-alone story, but rather a continuation of the story from the first part. Therefore, if you are new to this series, I recommend that you read it from the beginning.

『From My Mother's Fall to Her Passing (1)』This article has 5559 characters. (Estimated reading time: about 6 minutes and …

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My mother passed away on November 26th of last year.

『My beloved mother passed away on 11/26/2023.』This article has 7568 characters. (Estimated reading time: about 7 minutes and …

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This series of articles chronicles the long yet fleeting moments between my mother losing consciousness and her passing.

In this part, we will deviate from the timeline for a moment to revisit the topic of "bile" from the previous part and clarify it. To do so, we will rewind time by several months, so the chronological order will be disrupted.

Please keep in mind that the story from the beginning now shifts to a time well before my mother's collapse, so as to avoid confusion.

Tuberculosis Discovered During Palliative Care

【September 2022】

The story takes us back in time.

In 2022, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer after an examination revealed a shadow in her lungs.

Thereupon, our primary care physician explained to us, the mother and daughter, the exact same judgment as when the shadow in her lungs persisted despite the completion of tuberculosis treatment.

The doctor's proposal was to forego lung cancer treatment and proceed with palliative care.

Even then, my mother accepted the doctor's proposal without hesitation.

At that time, I still hoped for surgery, but I kept my silence and respected my mother's decision.

After a series of tests, it was discovered that my mother had tuberculosis bacteria in her lungs.

By the way, she had not yet developed the disease.

I believe it was on September 12, 2022, that I received a call from the hospital asking me to come in immediately.

On September 13, I went to the hospital and was told, "Tuberculosis bacteria was found in your lungs. You need to be hospitalized immediately."

The doctor said, "Once the tuberculosis treatment is complete, the lung shadow will most likely disappear."

When I returned home that day, my mother, who had never shown any emotion even when she was told she had cancer, broke down and said, "Thank goodness it's not cancer. I'm so relieved."

It was at that moment that I realized for the first time that my mother was also afraid and that she wanted to live. This was the first time I had ever known my mother's true feelings.

On September 15, my mother was hospitalized for tuberculosis treatment.

While she was hospitalized, my mother tried various medications, but each one had strong side effects. Just hearing about them made me feel so sorry for her.

Finally, the medication for her tuberculosis was determined, and my mother was able to be discharged from the hospital on November 17th and return home to live with me.

The battle against the side effects of the tuberculosis medication has begun.

The treatment period was 9 months after discharge, but my mother was lucky enough to only experience side effects for the last 2 months.

My mother suffered from side effects of the drug Isoniazid, which caused her to experience intense itching all over her body. She scratched herself constantly, and even anti-itch creams provided little relief. I felt helpless watching her suffer for two long months. It was truly heartbreaking and agonizing for me.

Long ago, after the discovery of penicillin, I had a vague impression that tuberculosis was an easily curable disease of the past. However, I now realize that this was completely wrong.

In Japan, tuberculosis is still classified as a Category II infectious disease, and all treatment is provided at public expense.

On the other hand, it can be said that tuberculosis remains a serious disease caused by a strong bacteria, even today.

By the way, I also got tested at a health center as a close contact.

Fortunately, the result was negative.

Emergency Surgery and Cholecystectomy on My Father's Anniversary

【July 2023】

Speaking of July 2023, it was the month when the COVID-19 pandemic finally ended and I resumed my live activities.

Originally, I had planned to start in the spring, but due to rain cancellations and other circumstances, I was not able to actually resume live activities until July 2nd.

『城天にてライブ復帰第１戦、その長い１日』この記事は11735文字です。（読破予想時間：約28分16秒） ■はじめにこの記事は、単純に一人のミュージシャンの、ライブ活動再開一発目のライブと言う日常の一…

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I had three live shows scheduled for this month, and it was also the beginning of a month of busy days balancing my caregiving and music activities.

Two days after I finished my live performance at Osaka Castle Park on July 23, 2023, on July 25, 2023, it was near the end of my mother's nearly year-long tuberculosis treatment. It was around the time when she only had to take tuberculosis medication a few more times to complete her treatment.

『ストリートは０人から始めるもの・城天ストリートライブ（2023年7月23日）にて』この記事は5013文字です。（読破予想時間：約11分56秒） ■はじめに今回の記事は、7/23に城天ストリートライブに出演した事を記事にしたものですが、記事タ…

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Before going to bed, I noticed something was off with my mother. When I asked her what was wrong, she said her back was aching a little.

I massaged her back for her, and she said it felt good. Then, as usual, she said "Goodnight, thank you" and we went to sleep.

At the time, I thought nothing more of her back pain than "I'll ask her about it again when the nurse comes next time."

However, the following day (July 26, 2023), before dinner, my mother told me, "I don't think I can eat dinner, so I don't want any."

When I asked her more about it, she said, "I don't feel like eating anything. I feel like I'll throw up if I do."

I've been cooking for my mother for six years, but this was the first time something like this had happened.

My mother had always finished everything I cooked for her before, so I felt something was wrong when I thought to myself, "This isn't normal."

Without hesitation, I immediately called the visiting nurse.

While waiting for the visiting nurse to arrive, my mother vomited.

It seems that my mother had been holding back and saying nothing until the very last minute.

This stubbornness and determination to not cause anyone any trouble or worry, for better or worse, is truly a part of my mother's character.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. A long time ago, when my father was still alive, my parents were living alone together. Back then, something very similar happened to my mother. My father called an ambulance, and I rushed to the hospital as well.

Back then, it turned out that a large gallstone that my mother had originally had in her gallbladder had broken off due to the Chinese herbal medicine treatment, and that was the cause of the pain and vomiting.

At that time, she was taken to the hospital by ambulance and examined. The pain and vomiting subsided, so she was discharged without having the gallstones removed.

Since something similar had happened a long time ago, I knew that my mother still had gallstones in her body when this incident happened on July 26, 2023. So when I saw my mother's back pain and vomiting, I immediately thought that these were the exact same symptoms that my father had told me about when she was taken away by ambulance before. I was convinced that the gallstones were acting up again.

When the nurse arrived, she quickly assessed my mother's condition and made a prompt decision. She told us, "I'm going to call an ambulance."

I also told the nurse about my mother's gallstones.

And soon after, the ambulance arrived.

In Japan, "mixed treatment," which refers to the simultaneous treatment of a Category II infectious disease (fully covered by the government) and a regular illness, is prohibited by law.

Therefore, the paramedics who arrived did not take my mother to the hospital where she was receiving tuberculosis treatment, but instead contacted other hospitals that she had visited in the past to find a place that could admit her. However, since my mother was undergoing tuberculosis treatment, no hospital would accept her.

As a result, the paramedics eventually contacted the hospital where she was receiving tuberculosis treatment, and she was finally able to be admitted to the hospital that was responsible for her tuberculosis care.

Tuberculosis is a Category II infectious disease, and since it would be considered mixed treatment with gallstone treatment, it is normally not allowed. However, due to various circumstances, it seems that her situation was simply seen as an emergency during treatment, and she was fortunately accepted. This was lucky for us.

From then on, I went to the hospital every day with the things my mother needed for her hospital stay.

My mother's tuberculosis treatment was completed during her hospital stay, shortly after her admission.

On July 29th, the anniversary of my father's death, I went to the hospital in the morning to deliver some necessities to my mother.

As soon as I arrived at the hospital, the hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgeon suddenly told me, "The gallstone treatment is not working. The inflammation levels are not decreasing and there is no sign of the pain subsiding. The test results show a large tumor (cancer) in the gallbladder. The gallbladder wall is thin and it is not surprising that it could rupture at any time. We will perform an emergency surgery now."

As I listened to the doctor's explanation, I signed a pile of documents.

Then, I was told to go home and wait for a call.

The doctor said that it is now customary for families to wait at home during surgery and be notified of the results by phone.

I went home and finished the memorial service for my father. That evening, I received a call from the hospital informing me that my mother's cholecystectomy had been successful.

The Shadow in the Lung Grows Larger

【September 7, 2023】

After being discharged from the hospital, my mother had a lung examination there for the first time in about a year.

On September 7, 2023, when we visited the doctor, the X-ray photos the doctor showed us showed that the shadow in her lung had not disappeared, but had grown by 1.5 to 2 times.

After all, the shadow was not from her previous tuberculosis, but from lung cancer.

I felt like I was going to faint from the shock.

My mother didn't change her expression, but I'm sure she was also disappointed and shocked.

The doctor explained the options and risks of several treatments, just as he had before, but his policy remained palliative care.

So this time too, I decided to respect my mother's wishes.

As before, my mother listened to the doctor without changing her expression.

And when she heard the doctor's proposal, she again answered immediately, "That's fine."

I wanted her to have surgery, even if it was dangerous, but she accepted the doctor's proposal without hesitation, just like last time.

So this time too, I decided to respect my mother's wishes.

After all, the shadow on the X-ray was not tuberculosis, but cancer.

As I recalled my mother's words of relief and her relieved expression when she was told a year ago that it was not cancer but tuberculosis, I was overwhelmed with an indescribable sense of unbearable pain.

The Association Between Bile Vomiting and Cholecystectomy: Still Unknown

Back to the topic, I wondered as a layman if the fact that I was vomiting bile, which is not normally supposed to be vomited, was due to the fact that I no longer had an organ called the gallbladder. But now, I don't know anything about it.

I had never heard of bile coming out of the mouth before, so I thought that bile should not normally flow from the gallbladder to the stomach or esophagus.

I don't know if it's related, but I decided to write about my gallbladder removal story this time, thinking that it might make the story up to Chapter 2 easier to understand. So I decided to write about the past more, even though it's a big departure from the blog title.

To Be Continued

Next time, we will return to the previous timeline and continue with the story from where we left off in the second part.
It will be a long one, but I hope you'll enjoy it.

＜Click here for the 1st episode＞

＜Click here for the 2nd episode＞