The Chemo Chronicles: Learning the limits

2 Replies

July 20, 2026

I’ve described most of the side effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs that I’ve experienced to date as mild or absent, at least so far after completing a single round of infusions. I feel a bit “fuzzy”, what I’ve described as perhaps 15% short of a sharp focus, along with moments of dizziness if I stand up too quickly, find myself waking up at night, and still have a somewhat depressed appetite.

Recently, though, I discovered a key limitation associated with the chemo.

It took me weeks to finish Monday’s post about former City Council member Trevor Ozawa and his past ties to the late Michael Miske Jr.—a complex investigative piece that normally would have taken a fraction of the time.

To explain requires going back to my “normal” writing routine.

My regular blog or Facebook posts are typically done quickly, usually no more than a day or two between the idea for a post and when it goes up online.

But I take much more care with longer and/or more complicated stories intended for distribution to a wider audience. These might percolate in the background for some time as I gather bits and pieces of information that might be relevant, stashing those details in a folder for future reference, and then begin to shape the form of the story, settling on the major points around which the story will be built. Finally I’ll sit down and write an initial rough draft, followed by several days honing the draft until it’s almost ready to publish.

BC, Before Cancer, I would at some point decide that enough is enough. The final step would be to lock myself and my laptop in our spare bedroom for most of a day to push through a final rewrite and edit.

By the end of a sometimes long and stressful session, I’m usually able to nail the final draft down tight before what used to be wine o’clock.

Writing a post about Candidate Ozawa has been high on my “to do” list for a long time, and I finally moved it to active status a couple of weeks ago. I selected a close-to-final draft more than a week ago. Normally, at this point, I would be ready to shut myself off for a day and wrestle the beast into form for publication.

But now, instead of a single, intensive marathon, I was forced into a relay race with myself—working an hour at a time before my focus evaporated.

So the final edit, usually completed in a day-long editing session, instead took a week of shorter writing sessions.

I wrapped up the final edit after watching the sunrise at Waialae Beach Park Monday morning, then hit publish.

It required coming to terms with the limits imposed by chemo—and, by extension, making adjustments to my own sense of self. This particular shift isn’t hard to accept, but it is a wake-up call. There will be other accommodations down the road as treatment continues.

“Know yourself,” the old adage says. I’m learning.

The Councilman, the Crime Boss, and the “Hostage” Trees

17 Replies

Tree at Joe Lukela park claimed by Mike Miske

Now that Trevor Ozawa is again a candidate running to take back his former seat on the Honolulu City Council, voters should examine his past misuse of his political position to benefit the late racketeering boss Mike Miske.

As a voter in his district, I haven’t forgotten how Ozawa—who served on the council from 2014 to 2018—aggressively used his legislative power to muscle the Department of Parks and Recreation into giving Miske special treatment.

In a nutshell

In 2016, Miske took over a tree in a park along Maunalua Bay in Hawaii Kai and wrapped it tightly with lights. The city Department of Parks and Recreation eventually received complaints and directed Miske to remove the lights. He belatedly complied, but wanted to repeat the tree lighting in 2017 over the department’s objections.

Miske turned to the Honolulu City Council member from his district, Trevor Ozawa, who became his rather enthusiastic advocate, eventually resorting to legislative threats and insider political muscle to get Miske what he wanted. Ozawa successfully forced the city to approve Miske’s lights despite substantive opposition from the parks department that cited the danger to tree health, the administrative problems posed by privatizing park trees, the precedent affecting 200,000 other trees, and the placement of bright lights along the shoreline, which posed a threat to seabirds and appeared to violate environmental laws.
Continue reading →

Makua: The Captive Valley

4 Replies

Back in 1983, I was digging into records at the State Archives and depositories for sources of information about how the military had accumulated so much land on Oahu and throughout the state.

A local newspaper, Ka Huliau, published my story on the history of military control of Makua Valley in its May-June 1983 issue.

Ka Huliau or “The Turning Point” was a left leaning, underground, independent newspaper printed by Hawaii Education for Social Progress, Inc..Published in the 1980s (presumably from 1982-1986) Ka Huliau self-identified as “An independent newspaper focusing on Hawaii and Pacific issues.” These issues included labor strikes, nuclear proliferation, socialism and others primarily in the context of their effect on Hawaiians and other Islanders.

I asked Google for the people behind Hawaii Education for Social Progress, and it identied several key players: The primary editors and staff members associated with the organization and publication included Roland Kotani, Grace Kotani, Cindy Broch, Gary Takiyama, John Witeck, and Lucy Witeck. Roland Kotani was appointed to the Hawaii House of Reprentatives by then Gov. John Waihee in 1987, and ran unopposed for the same seat in the 1988 election.

In a tragic turn of events, Roland Kotani was found bludgeoned to death in his home in July 1989. Grace Kotani, his estranged wife, agreed to be interviewed by HPD with her attorney present, and confessed to the killing. She then asked to use the restroom, killed herself with a handgun hidden in her purse.

The scan below is of mediocre quality, done many years ago, but I hope you’ll be able to read the article despite the quality issues.

Getting poi ready to eat

6 Replies

Now that I’ve figured out the delivery days that Taro Brand poi arrives at our nearby Times Supermarket and at Foodland in Aina Haina, I’m figuring out how to keep the refrigerator stocked.

I took this photo after adding two bags fresh bags yesterday (Friday), delivery day at Times.

The two bags at the top are easily identified as the fresh poi by their color, a dark gray. I’ll leave these on the kitchen counter at room temperature for a week or so, or until needed. I’m not sure of the right word. Leaving them out to ripen?

The third bag, closest to the camera, has been out at room temperature since Thursday of the prior week, and is ready to empty into a bowl, add water if necessary, and refrigerate until the next meal. Note this poi’s reddish color, indicating some fermentation has been taking place and it’s likely to be nice and tart. In other words, ready to eat!

I’ve been eating poi in place of rice and potato, although I still cook those for Meda. And I’ve been eating a couple of bags per week in the expectation that poi is going to improve my gut health and deliver needed nutrition.

I have always preferred sour poi since small kid time. So do many of my Hawaiian friends. That was the reason that I bristled years ago at Honolulu Magazine’s “Sour Poi Awards” given to the tongue-in-cheek awards that “poke fun at the dumb, the daft, and the deranged local news, political gaffes, and wacky mishaps that occurred over the previous twelve months.” It struck me as an admission of a subtle anti-Hawaiian bias or, perhaps, simple ignorance of the fact that sour poi is the preference of many in the islands. Unfortunate, but true.