October 25, 2023

My last update to this page was on July 31. I went home from the hospital on August 1 and started teaching on the following day. I haven’t made updates here since I make updates in class every week. I believe that many other people read this homepage in addition to my students so I will give a final update here now.

I had difficulty eating after I returned home. I ate almost nothing for the first week. When I could finally eat, the food had a very strong metallic taste. After several weeks, that bad taste went away. Now there is no bad taste, but nothing tastes delicious. It is also difficult to swallow some foods unless I drink water to help me swallow. This is getting better, but very slowly. The doctor said I should be mostly back to normal in three to six months.

I visited Keio Hospital yesterday for the third checkup after the treatment finished. I had a PET CT scan. They injected radioactive material into my bloodstream. After about an hour, they scanned my whole body to see if there was any cancer. In the afternoon, Dr. Ozawa showed me the results of the scan. He showed the scan taken before the treatments alongside the scan they took yesterday. On the first scan, there was a huge orange area and a tiny orange area. Those were cancer growths. Yesterday’s scan showed no cancer.

The first 12 months after treatment are risky for the cancer to return. I will visit the hospital once a month until next August. If there are no problems, I will visit the hospital two or three times a year for four more years. After five years, they will say that I am cured of cancer.

I wanted to thank the doctors, nurses, technicians etc. for taking such good care of me. Everyone was so kind to me. After living in Ward 7 D for seven weeks, the nursing staff was like family to me. They are all so young, so I guess like grandchildren to me.

Besides writing a thankyou letter, which was translated into Japanese, I baked some cookies and banana bread. I baked a dozen cookies and one banana bread for Dr Ozawa’s examination staff, Dr Yamada and her dental assistants and Dr Kouta and his radiologist technicians. For the nurses in Ward 7 D, I baked four dozen cookies and two banana breads. The nurses were happy and excited to see me. They will never forget that “crazy American!” They were surprised that I like baking. I baked most of Sunday and finished on Monday.

This will be the last time I post here about my condition. I’m slowly getting better and will someday be back to normal. Well, my brain will never be normal, but my health should be in a few months. If you will not see me in class and want to know my condition, you can email me at:

wakaibob@gmail.com