Yes, back to the blogger after an absence of over a month. A lot has happened in the past 30+ days, good and bad.

Of course, vacation time, Christmas, and New Year's are the good things that happened. Lots of fun home with Masashi and Ritsuko. Masashi really enjoyed Christmas Day this year (last year he wasn't really old enough to understand, and he got mostly clothing). He tore into the presents as excitedly as any kid, and the look on his face when he saw what was inside each one was wonderful! Of course, the toys we got him ARE pretty cool. I found a bunch of toys by the British toy company Early Learning Centre, most of them from their Happyland series. Great stuff made from hard, sturdy plastics, and colorfully detailed (as in details are actually painted a different color from plastic in which they are set). Then, a few days after the new year, we got a package from everyone in America. So, even more toys for Masa!! The holidays have been fun.

Unfortuantely, a lot of bad things have happened over this holiday season. Ritsuko's Grandma Yamamoto seems to be getting a lot weaker and Grandpa Bando was admitted to the hospital New Year's Eve with pneumonia. The worst news, though, came a few days before the end of the month. Ritsuko went to the doctor because of sinus congestion. The doctor noticed a rather large lump in her neck and referred Ritsuko to another doctor. After a various scans and tests, Ritsuko was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, probably papillary. This is the most easily treated of all cancers, and many patients can be cured. But, cancer is cancer, and everybody is a little freaked out, despite the relatively good prognosis. Ritsuko goes in for surgery on January 26th. They will remove the main tumor as well as the entire thyroid, a number of smaller tumors that were found in the surrounding area, and begin a radioactive iodine treatment to destroy any thyroid (and thus potentially cancerous) cells remaining. Looks to be a stay of between 2 and 4 weeks.

During that time, Masashi gets to go to day care (which he loves!), and Ritsuko's sister will help out around the house and with Masashi. Ritsuko, Masashi, and I all went to the Hokkaido Shrine (Shinto) today so Ritsuko could take part in a prayer ceremony to help her through all of this. I, of course, won't bother with supernatural religious stuff, but I think it made her felt better, so it's all good. Having prayed to thousands and thousands of gods in that one ceremony, one more god probably won't make much difference, but feel free to pray to you god for her, too! hahaha Doing something I view to be more comforting than going to the shrine, Ritsuko has also started her own blog as a way to deal with the cancer and her feelings. It's all in Japanese (what, you can't read Japanese?), but check it out at
http://litzko.blogspot.com/

So, here are some (a lot) of pictures from the past month. Enjoy!

Christmas 2005
2005-12-11
2006-01-01