New Plan for Uncle Kazu

Laurel & I went to the hospital again today; we had a meeting with Kaiki the hospice nurse and Josh the hospitalist at Kohala Hospital. I think it was a very productive meeting. The bottom line is that they are working to provide Uncle Kazu with palliative care as he is coming to the end of life. Over the last few days they have started using extended release morphine to keep him pain free; prior to this he would have such intense pain he said he wanted to shoot himself. They were administering the morphine every 12 hours and using oxycodone for any break through pain. But it was making him lethargic and it was hard to communicate with him. Starting tonight they will try a different regimen; they will give him his regular evening dose of extended release morphine. In the morning they will see if he still has enough morphine in his system to give him pain relief. Because his kidneys are not functioning well, they remove the morphine from his system much slower than for a person with normal kidney function which is what the 12 hour dosing is based on. If he has break through pain during the day, they will give him sublingual morphine drops which act almost immediately to stop the pain. We are hoping his is more lucid and can actually tell us what he would like.

The geckos were there again today. But their food source had been knocked to the ground; it was now under the bench.


The first time I got up this morning it was raining. It was also raining when I finally got out of bed. It rained for a lot of the morning; I figured Greg & Brandon from Aikane Nursery would not come by.

Seven minutes after sunrise and raining.

One hundred & two minutes after sunrise and still raining! Aue!

Rain on the heliconia outside my bedroom window.

Rain! Even the mynas are taking shelter on the downspouts under Jessie's eaves.

Rain obscures the view of Haleakala.

While it was raining Laurel called and said she had talked to hospice RN Kaiki who was going to get in touch with Josh the hospitalist and set up a meeting for us to discuss next steps. She asked if I would be available; I said I didn't think Aikane would come because of the rain and that I could leave a note for Leslie the plumber since all the work was outside and she was familiar with the house since she did work for me before.

I then told Laurel I hoped I wasn't intruding on her by going with her when to see Uncle Kazu; I was concerned since she is Uncle Kazu's POA. She said she appreciated my presence since I had experience with Mom when she was very ill and when she died. She said to ask Kaiki & Josh anything I wanted as it would help her out, too. I'm glad we had that talk.

I got a call from Greg from Aikane about mid-morning; it had stopped raining and the sun was actually out. He and Brandon came by a short while later; we walked the property and talked about the trees and my expectations. Aikane now has several crews, one for landscape maintenance (Greg's group) and one for tree maintenance (Brandon's group). They also have a fencing crew, which will be another conversation. We agreed that at least for the April & May visits it would be the tree coming in order to get things started with the trees. For April they will concentrate on the lychee tree; it will likely take more than the monthly amount that is automatically paid to them. I told them to send me an e-mail with ADDITIONAL PAYMENT NEEDED in the subject line to get my attention and tell me how much they went over in order to get it in shape. Then in June, Sarah & the landscape crew will come & work on the weeding, weed cloth along the frontage, No Spray signs, and other things.

In the meanwhile Greg will get an estimate for rebuilding the anthurium beds. He said it would be easier to have the hāpuʻu moved first then have the substrate spread around the newly planted hāpuʻu. Payment for the anthurium bed material would be separate from the monthly contract.

Brandon & the tree crew will come back in July & possibly August; after that they will check in and be back every 3 months or so as the various trees need maintenance. Brandon & Greg will coordinate which crew will be present; only one crew will work each month unless it is a separate payment item. We looked at all the fruiting trees on the property and discussed each one. They will be adding mulch around the mango & the avocado to avoid weeds and having the weed whacker operating too near them. It turns out that what I thought was weed whacker damage to the mango trunk is actually pig damage; I'm glad Grey fixed the fence so they can no longer get in!

Pig damage on the mango trunk.

One of the trees that was dying because it was shaded out when there was a lot of other tree growth over it has started to leaf out nicely; they originally thought it might be a tamarind. But Greg used an app on his phone which said it was a Japanese Chestnut which they said will grow here and produce edible fruit! I'm glad I decided to be patient and see what it was instead of just cutting it down; I love chestnuts! I hope they're right; I can't wait for it to start producing!


After they left I picked up the mountain apples that had dropped off the tree overnight. I also picked the ripe ones that I could reach; which wasn't much. I have decided to buy a regular step ladder for chores around the house that I could also use to pick mountain apples; later I will get an orchard ladder.

The far right row are ones that I picked off the tree.

I also checked up on the African Tulip Tree stumps that I had treated the last time with using Roundup on the cut stump; where Roundup concentrate is painted on the freshly cut ends of the shoots that have come up from the stump. The treated and the untreated stumps looked similar; there was no tall growth on either one. I think perhaps the guys with the weed whackers last week trimmed a bunch of stuff off! But you could see that there was a little more vigorous short growth on the untreated stump. I treated what little I could find with Roundup spray.

The untreated African Tulip stump.

A close-up of the untreated stump.

The treated stump.

A close-up of the treated stump.

While we were waiting for our meeting at Kohala Hospital to begin, I walked around the new wheelchair path. I had heard from RN Moryka yesterday that Uncle Kazu really enjoyed the new path; I am sad that I will not be able to join him on his exercise route on the new path. I think he was one of the main reasons that they built that path during their recent remodel of the outside area.






I was dreading calling the Hawaiian Airlines reservation line to extend my stay another week. Before my trip I had to call them to verify when my return flight was; it took 2 hours on hold to finally get through! I was pleasantly surprised today when it only took about 15 minutes. But now I am confirmed for next Thursday and I didn't need to pay a change fee. I guess that is one benefit in this time of COVID-19. I did notice that there were only 4 flights available each day now; no early morning red-eye flights and no flights after 6:53 in the evening. They're about 3 to 3&1/2 hours apart.

These are now all the flights from KOA to HNL.

I got a text from Grey today. He said, "arrived, checked in to the USA and loaded the boat successfully. Whew!" I'm glad they got to dock and get all the supplies on board. I told him I would be here next week, hopefully I can see the Arka Kinari and meet the rest of the crew.

I told Laurel I would contact the Sensei at the church to see if he would be able to come to see Uncle Kazu. But when I tried to call the number for the church I found it was disconnected. I took some flowers to the cemetery and went to the church building to find some new phone numbers. I will call tomorrow.

The poinsettia is still alive!

On the way back I stopped at Takata Store; I wanted to find more of the microwave pork rinds. Apparently I must have gotten them at the KTA in Waimea because there were none at Takata. My current plan is to go in to Waimea tomorrow or the next day because I have to do laundry since I am staying a week longer. (Actually the complete plan is to check if the Waimea laundromat is open, if not I head to Honokaʻa where Josh is from; he said the laundromat there is open.) While in Waimea I will go to HPM Building Supply for the pavers that Sunshine does not carry and also visit an appliance store and order a front loading washer for delivery before I leave. So I could also stop at KTA and pick up more microwave pork rinds!


I also got this. Yes, I know its not low carb. But I just needed some comfort food tonight. So I ate it. No, not the whole thing, just about half a serving.


There were 23 new cases yesterday, bringing the total up to 410 COVID-19 cases. Early on people were thinking the number was going to increase greatly when the number of tests completed increased; that does not appear to be the case, it has stayed relatively stable at 2.7%. Statewide, based on the 2019 population data, only 1.1% of the population has been tested so far. Hawaiʻi Island still has only 23 cases; Oʻahu still has the highest daily increases. Overall 42 people have been hospitalized and 5 people have died; 113 of the known positive cases have recovered.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Lorraine & Hester!