Update On The New Car

Yes, I'm talking about our new car. It seemed all fine and dandy when we first bought it. You would think that buying it from a dealer everything would be all good, right? WRONG! In order to get it all registered and everything, you have to do the base inspections along with Japanese inspections. Well, it failed. The base inspector said there was all kinds of problems with it and it would cost $600 just for labor, no parts included. So we took it back to the dealer. It really wasn't necessary to do everything they said, although it did still need some work. We got it done at the dealership and a week later were able to finally get all the registration taken care of. Not everything is fixed yet though. We still need to replace the brakes (they aren't super bad yet, but will need replaced soon) and we are having problems with the alternator. It's ridiculous how much stuff costs in Japan. One auto parts store wanted $800 just for the alternator. Ouch! We can order a new one online for $150. Ben talked to the Auto Shop here on post though and I guess they got something figured out. One of Ben's buddies is going to help him fix it all up, so hopefully by this weekend it will be up and running. It's great when we can get it to work though. Most days Japan has perfect convertible cruising weather. I love it!

Right off the lot!

It's so much smaller than my car! So much fun though!

Isn't it cute?!?!

Only in Japan

Living in Japan, you never know what you'll see as you drive down the road. Here's a few examples from our last trip to Yokota...

This was actually on post, but it's "American" and "Japanese" style outhouses.

Sorry, no bikes or handcarts.

I don't think she had enough stuffed animals in her back window.

Ummm, excuse me, but my car is that top middle one...

Wait! Which way do I go?!

The Japanese Police, hard at work as usual.

Duh, you just gotta "Reflax"!

The "Vacation" Part of Oki

Our trip to Okinawa wasn't just dr appts. After a few days of having to take a cab everywhere we decided to rent a car which made it easier to get out and see stuff. We went to a couple of the other bases down there, went to the beach, and were able to just get out of the hotel room for a little bit (which is always a plus). :)

I'm not sure what exactly they were celebrating, but there were fireworks right outside post over the weekend. We had the perfect view from our hotel room. It was so cool!

Torii Station is the Army installation down in Okinawa, which just happens to be right on the coast. So we got to go to the beach and the only people there were those somehow affiliated with the military in one way or another. It wasn't crowded, the water was great, and it was super nice to get out and enjoy ourselves for a little while.

It was so great to see Ben smile again too. We both ended up with some sunburns (his were worse than mine). But it was so nice to get out and enjoy some sun.

We got poured on that morning on our way there. Luckily it had let up by the time we got there.

We rented a 2-person kayak and some snorkeling gear for the afternoon. That was pretty cool. I wish I had an underwater camera so I could have gotten some pictures of the cool fish we saw while snorkeling. Just for the record though, ocean water doesn't taste that great. Yuck, too salty for me. :P

All in all, a very relaxing day. Just what we needed.

Trial and Error

We went back to the dr this afternoon for test results. Or really the lack there of. We still don't know what's causing the abdominal pain or the kidney stones. He did a few tests the end of last week. For the kidney stones he had another CT Scan done and had to do a 24 hour urine collection. The CT Scan didn't show anything, and the urine collection has to be sent to Texas or somewhere so we won't know those results for a couple months. For the pain, he had to do a test where he swallowed a camera the size of a large pill and was hooked up to all kinds of wires and a machine and it took pictures as it went through. That was done to make sure there weren't any problems with his small intestine, and there aren't. We didn't think there was, but just to be sure. So we don't know what's causing the pain. There's really no point in doing another colonoscopy. He's had two done already and nothing was found so there's really no point in doing another one. While we were there today, the dr went and grabbed one of the surgeons who deals more with abdominal surgeries and such just to make sure he didn't miss anything and to see if he had any other ideas, and the surgeon was just as stumped as the rest of us. We discussed our options some more, and now we're going to try a trial and error approach and see if we can find a medicine that helps. So he's back on naproxen and something else that I can't remember at the moment, and we've got to get him off the percocet. Narcotics can actually make gut pain/problems worse, and he's been on them almost 2 months now so we really need to get him off. We are trying anti-inflammatory first, which we think may help. He had been on naproxen before for his shoulder and the pain really started when he ran out and stopped taking it. Another thing that makes us lean towards inflammation somewhere, is using a heating pad helps the pain. Doesn't make it completely disappear, but helps some. So that's the plan of action right now. The kidney stones, well we're not sure what's gonna happen with that yet. I guess we wait and see what results come back from the urine collection and go from there. So really we aren't going home with much more than we came down with. And it wasn't much of a vacation seeing how we spent most of the time either in the hotel room or at the hospital. We did go down to the beach Sunday, and I'll post those pics when I find the camera. It's probably still in the backpack. But that's all the news for now. We'll be home tomorrow. Hopefully our puppies forgive us for having left them out on the back patio for the past week. We had someone taking care of them, but with all the rain that's fallen up there hopefully everything's ok...

AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

We've been in Okinawa for just over 24 hours now, and let's just say things haven't exactly been smooth sailing. I'll start with yesterday. The day started alright. We got up and finished getting things ready to go before the van came to pick us up. The van showed up early and I wasn't ready to go. Not a huge deal. I just thought I'd have an extra 5 minutes. We stop and pick up one other person and head to the airport. Things still ok. Traffic was pretty heavy most of the way, but luckily the airport we flew out of isn't very far so we still made it with about an hour to spare before our flight. Once we figured out how to check in (because we just had a print out of our itinerary), we got our boarding passes, checked our suitcase, and headed to security. They are so much more laid back here than they are in the states. Didn't have to take laptops out of our bags, let alone take our shoes off. So that was nice. We get through and decide we need food as we kinda skipped breakfast in our hurry to get out the door. What we didn't realize was our choices were kinda limited once we passed through security. We ended up settling on sandwiches and juice. I know, not very exciting, but it was food. We relaxed in a couple massaging chairs while we ate and waited to board the plane. Relaxing, but definitely not long enough. Time comes to board the plane. Who knew so many people flew down to Okinawa. The flight was full. We ended up with middle seats which really wasn't all that comfortable, but oh well. It was only a 2 1/2 hour flight. They had a camera on the front of the plane so we could see what the pilot saw as we took off and landed which I thought was pretty cool. We finally get to Oki, get off the plane, find our luggage and go to find our ride. The hospital sent down a van to pick us up and take us to the hotel. Things still going alright. Just chillin' and watching out the window taking in the sights, when I look down and see this big spider on my door. He was outside, but still gross. Yes, that's my hand next to him to give you an idea of how big he was. Yuck! I have no idea what kind of spider he was, but I guess he thought he was part of the welcoming committee. It's just a good thing he was on the outside and not actually in the car. So after a little bit we get to our hotel. Pulling up outside my first thought was "ok this might not be too bad." I don't know that I could have been more wrong. We go to check in, and are reading over the fees/fines etc and to give you an idea of how ridiculous they are, it cost more to replace the room key if you lost it than it did to stay in the room for one night. We go to the room and I don't think it could have been any smaller. It had a double bed (yes a double bed for the both of us to share) which was super hard, it did have a small kitchen area which would have been nice if there had been somewhere close by to go get food. There was no internet, but they did have cable tv. It's been so long since I've seen American commercials and had more than seven channels to choose from. It was a nice change though. After spending about 5 minutes in the room we decided to go see if they had anything bigger. They didn't. So we called the main reservation desk, and they said they had a room in a different hotel that we could stay in, but it wouldn't be open until the next day. Ok we can deal with this small dinky room for one night. We go back to the room, order a pizza for lunch/dinner, and turn the tv on. Pizza finally shows up, we eat, and then settle in for nap. Not the most comfortable, but it helped. We finally wake up, have some dinner and start noticing little bugs crawling around the room. We don't think much of it right then. It's not until we're getting ready for bed that we realize how bad they really are. Ben picked up his computer (which was sitting on a chair, not the floor) and it's covered in these little ant bugs. Then we start finding more. All over the counter, the chair, the bedside table, the floor, everywhere! It's like 11pm now, and of course there is no one up at the front desk for us to talk to. We call the reservation desk again and tell them we need a new room NOW! There's no way we're going to stay there sleeping with the bugs. They worked something out for us and we're able to get a new room , we just had to find a way to get there. We pack our stuff back up real quick while the cab is called and get ready to head out. By midnight we were checking in to the new hotel. This one's much nicer. Bigger bed, internet, and no bugs. By the time we get settled back in and ready for bed it's close to 2 am. Neither of us slept that great. I'm sure it was because we were sleeping in a different bed, and just having a hard time unwinding after the day. Ben's first appt was at 11 this morning, or so we thought. We got to the hospital and first went to the wrong clinic. I thought Urology was first, but we should have been up at the GI. They didn't tell us that until after we'd been sitting there for about 10 minutes. So we run upstairs, only to find out they have rescheduled our appt for later this afternoon. Now we've got about 2 hours to kill before we had back to Urology for that appt. We get a cab and come back to the base where the hotel is as that's where the food court and anywhere to eat is. We get some lunch, wander around the exchange for a little bit, and then head back to the hotel for a bit. Ben set up a wireless internet router so we can both use our laptops in the room. They provide a computer with internet access in each room, but that's all. And when we both like spending time on our computers that was just a bit of a problem. So he got that all set up and we're a happy couple for the moment. We call another cab and head back over to the hospital. Now our first appt is with Urology. We head up, check in, do vital signs, blah blah blah. We go back to the waiting room for a couple minutes before meeting with the dr. I can't say we are overly impressed with the dr. She seems nice and all, but not too concerned with finding the cause of the kidney stones. She ordered a CT Scan and some blood work, but all that's gonna tell us is if he has any kidney stones now and not why he has them. That's really all she does though. She puts in the orders and we leave. By now we're feeling that this trip is a waste of time. We've got an hour and a half to kill before his GI appt, but we head upstairs anyway. We hang out in their waiting room for a while before the dr says he can see us early. We go back, we talk, and were basically told "I don't know what's wrong with you and I don't know if we'll be able to figure it out." He's willing to do whatever we want, but he has more ideas of what's not wrong than what is. Not exactly what we want to hear. We may just end up treating the symptoms, but really we want to find the cause of the pain. He's been in so much pain lately that he just really can't do anything by himself. He's on Percocet right now, but even that doesn't completely help. It takes the edge off so he can move around, but that's about it. I brought that up with the dr and he said there really isn't anything we can do right now to help that. This dr doesn't like to prescribe narcotics for gut pain, but that's all that helps Ben right now, so he's not going to say stop taking it. So again, we leave the clinic without any answers. He did order a test to check out his small intestine (I can't remember what it's called right now) just to make sure the problems aren't there. We head down to Radiology to schedule it and are told the next available appt is Sept 10th. We're supposed to leave the 3rd and really don't feel like hanging around an extra week just for this test. So we head back up to talk to the dr and he's going to call the Radiologist and see if we can't get it done sooner. If not we'll do a different test. So once again we are playing the waiting game with no answers in sight. You have NO idea how frustrating this is getting. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Why can't someone just give us some answers?!?! So that's been our trip so far. I'll let ya know if we find anything else out.

Leavin' On A Jet Plane...

Here's the latest update on Ben... He's not doing so great. He's in a lot of pain again (or still), and they can't do anything here but dope him up. So needless to say he hasn't had to go to work. He goes down to the first formation in the morning (which I have to drive him down to, again because of the pain), but then comes home and spends the rest of the day either in bed or on the couch. And it's to the point where he hurts so bad, that I have to help him move around. So he's really kinda miserable right now We are headed down to Okinawa to see the GI and Urology Specialists next week. It's taken them 3 weeks to get these appointments set up. We were first told I wasn't going to be able to go with him unless we paid my own way. But after talking to them this morning and saying "um hey, he can't get up on the couch by himself how's he supposed to fly down to Okinawa alone?" Ok so not those words exactly, but you know what I mean. So they bought me a ticket to so I can help him around. We're going to be down there atleast a week. We fly out the morning of the 25th and will be back the afternoon of the 3rd. Unless they decide he needs to stay longer, just because we don't know what kinds of tests and stuff they are going to need to do. I'll try to keep you updated on what we find out. Hopefully it's what's making him hurt so much and how to make him feel better.

Don't Come a Knockin' When the Whole Islands Rockin'!

We had a pretty big earthquake tonight. The biggest and longest I've felt since being here. I was in the shower and Ben was in bed when it hit. Talk about a crazy feeling. It wasn't strong enough to do any damage (not here anyway). But it did have the dogs freaked out. I'll include an article from the AP News that gives ya a little more detail. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think the earthquakes we get are kinda fun... :P



Aug 9, 7:48 AM EDT
Strong earthquake shakes Tokyo area


TOKYO (AP) -- A strong earthquake shook the Japanese capital and surrounding areas Sunday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the temblor, which rattled furniture and walls in Tokyo homes at 7:56 p.m. (1056 GMT) Sunday, the agency said.
The Japanese agency recorded the quake at a preliminary magnitude of 6.9. The United States Geological Survey said the quake was magnitude 7.1 and that it was centered in the Izu Islands some 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo.
The Japanese agency said there was no danger of tsunami from the quake. It was 1,115 feet (340 meters) below the ocean bed in the waters off the eastern coast of Japan, according to the agency.
The agency said the quake shook Tokyo, as well as the prefectures (states) of Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba and others around the capital.
Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

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