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Trying to get out of the bed this morning, I touched my hipbone by chance, and was startled to find how protruded it is. I looked at my whole figure in the mirror and had a good look at it. The good news is that my legs look much longer than they used to because I lost a lot of weight around the hips and things, but the bad news is that I almost look like a bony young teen before she starts putting on womanly weight, if it were not for my gray hair. My weight has been a problem, and I seem to be losing the battle on this front.

Even though I have been defying my oncologist’s concern about my weight on the surface, it has been a thorny issue. In fact, I have not been feeling too well during the past few days, and I am a little annoyed when the weight that a doctor’s assistant measured on Thursday at the pulmonary specialist office was 99.2 with my clothes and shoes.

This morning, I took an envelope of Carnation milk out of the cupboard reluctantly, mixed it with 2 cups of whole milk, and drank with a piece of buttered toast. It was too thick to drink, and I felt sick afterward, and went to bed to take a nap.

I have been sleeping quite a bit during the past two days, probably from the exhaustion and letdown from the trip and the hard week of work that followed.

This week I worked from Monday through Wednesday for a Japanese college delegation that came here to learn about “community service learning.” With the delegation, I went to Providence, RI on Monday and stayed there.

Monday was a loaded day; meeting with three organizations back-to-back, a working lunch, and a visit to a soup kitchen. By the time we were done with the soup kitchen, I was hungry while ready to crash, because I did not have time to eat during the lunchtime. I went out with the delegation for dinner, and tried to eat as much as I could.

Whether because I overextended myself or because I walked three long blocks back right after eating, I had a very bad dumping syndrome on the way back, and could not do anything but lie down on the bed that night-no teeth brushing nor changing clothes. Every time I have a dumping syndrome, I feel something else is going on; it feels so bad that I feel like I am experiencing a new kind of pain, in spite of the fact that it is almost a weekly routine at least. The only consolation of the night was that the hotel had a bed and pillow made of memory form; it was like another skin encapsulating your body. Actually I was so impressed by the quality of the bed that I obtained the distributor’s information at the front desk.

While working fairly intensely, I was also busy collecting and writing application materials for my son who is studying in Scotland right now. He decided to apply for a summer intensive Japanese language course at a Japanese university this summer. While we urged him to start getting his act together before and during our time in Scotland, he only started preparing the material this week (and the deadline in Japan is 3/22! following the 3/21 that is a national holiday when every office is closed and no mail delivery is available.)

Unlike US college applications, for which online processing is available, this college required an applicant to assemble a recommendation form, transcript as well as the application form and essay to mail in one package. Since my son is in Scotland, assembling the letters and filling out the application PDF form became my job by default. By the time I FedExed the material to Japan on Thursday evening, before the snowstorm, I was totally exhausted.

Since yesterday we have been buried in snow. After a warm week with the daytime temperature around 60, we had a snowstorm on Friday and Saturday. My older son who works near Boston decided not to come back last night because the road was very bad. My neighbor cleaned a part of my driveway so that I could walk out of the house and at least pick up the mail and newspaper. Thank you!

My plan for the weekend; laundry and taxes…sigh.