Happy hiking tales

Every medical experience I have had in Japan has been a mini adventure in its own right. 

Back in February, I caught the Cold From Hell. I ended up with a fever for 3 days, and this weird old man, non-productive cough, and absolutely no energy. Since I am lucky enough to have medical insurance, I left school early and saw a doctor. Influenza was going around at the time, so they wanted to test me for it. 

No problem, I thought. How bad can it be?

That’s when the nurse put me in a room and pulled out a long dry swab from its packaging-except it didn’t look like an ordinary ear swab, but one with what seemed to be a pipe cleaner on the end. 

She started toward me and there must have been fear in my eyes, because she started apologizing before her hands even reached my head. I was aware that she was about to push the swab up my nose and I pulled my head back unconsciously.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she said, and grabbed my head to hold me still.

It was incredibly uncomfortable-borderline painful- and I was vaguely aware that my left hand was raised and tightening into a fist and she scraped around the back of my nasal passage.

Just as I was about to (unintentionally) deck her, the nurse pulled her hand back and my nose was finally free.

All that and it turns out I wasn’t influenza positive. Until that moment, though, that was the weirdest medical experience I’d ever had.

Oh, but Japan has transpired to keep me sick, which is odd since I’m pretty healthy back home. Then again, San Diego isn’t exactly a climate that breeds seriously illness!

Recently, I got sick. Terribly sick. Again.

What I thought was just a cold turned out to be a horrendous case of tonsillitis. Man, I will not wish that on even my enemies! It was honestly the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life.

The first doctor I went to barely looked at my throat and claimed I just had a cold. Too bad I had no other cold symptoms whatsoever, I’d never seen white patches on my throat before, and the soreness didn’t go away. 

You know what's good for sick people? Strenuous physical exertion!

Hiking Mt. Takao

 For whatever reason, I thought some fresh air would pump me back to perfect health, so I went hiking that weekend with some friends. Bad choice. By the time I was heading back on the trains, I was feverish and my throat felt like it was ON FIRE.

I should have asked these Jizo to watch over me. Lesson learned.

Despite propping my bed with every spare pillow in our apartment to try and give my some leverage, I got maybe 2 hours of sleep that night. I was just in too much pain to relax and even made several cups of tea throughout the night to try and sooth my throat. By the morning I was delirious and practically crying from frustration and pain. 

Rather than dick around at the general practitioners like I had before, I searched for an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist in my town. Luckily, there was one at the hospital I had used before. 

So I biked my sorry keister over there, waited, and finally saw the doctor, who surprised me by speaking English. 

When he touched my throat to see if my lymph nodes were swollen I had to bite my lip to keep from bursting into tears.

“Why did you wait so long?” he gently asked after taking a real look at the inside of my my mouth. I tried to explain that the other doctor hadn’t even bothered to shine a light on my throat. The doctor sighed and shook his head.

Then I had an endoscope pushed up my nose and down into the back of my throat. Pros: A really really accurate diagnosis (Not that the swelling and white patches weren’t enough to go by), and a commemorative photo of my swollen larynx. Cons: I keep getting weird things pushed up my nose and it’s rather uncomfortable.

So, I was diagnosed with acute bacterial tonsillitis and my white count was crazy enough that I was given intravenous antibiotics. Twice. Originally the procedure was supposed to take an hour because the drip line was barely open. I thought that was quite ridiculous (an hour for 100 mls?!), so after some quick texting back and forth with my mommy, I opened the line up while the nurse wasn’t looking and got discharged within 30 minutes. 

Teehee. 

I'm not a drug addict, I am sick.

 Japanese pharmacies don’t compound their medications often-if at all-so I ended up with a plethora. I sorta felt like an I.M. patient with my anti-inflammatory, antibiotic, anti esophageal ulcer and swelling medications.

But hey, at least I’m feeling better!  And I learned some very valuable information from this whole experience. The word for "uvula" in Japanese is "nodo chinko", which literally means "throat dick". I am endlessly amused by this.