The Japanese medical world

Well it turns out it wasn’t my studious efforts that brought on the headache, but rather something to do with my kidney and/or bladder infection. Fun fun. So here follows the thrilling story of my first encounter with the Japanese medical world.

Thursday morning I got a bad headache, but didn’t think about it too hard. Probably because it hurt to think too hard… The medicine the school nurse gave me helped for a few hours, but by the time I went home, the headache ( ずつう) was back full swing. I emailed my friend in Osaka to tell him I wasn’t coming as I didn’t feel too great, but said that I might go through Friday morning for the day, so I’d let him know what my plans were. Haha.

I swallowed a wonderful South African paracetemol tablet (which works fine even without having to have a meal first – take that Japanese medicine!), and felt much much better for most of the night. I went to bed somewhere around 23:30 and I could feel the beginnings of the headache again, but I figured I’d sleep it off. My bug must have been having a good chuckle at my naivety…

Friday morning I knew I needed to go to the doctor, so I got myself going at about 09:20 (about 20 minutes after waking up) with my head pounding. I figured I’d skip breakfast then as the doctor may need to do blood samples or something that weren’t chocabloc full of breakfast. Mistake #1. I found out at the clinic that the doctor “speaks very good English” which made me feel a bit better about the situation. Then I sat and waited. And waited. And then some. Around 2 hours later, I get summoned through to the consultation room, at which point my head is pounding (although to be fair one of the nurses did come and ask after about 1h20min if I wanted to lie down, and I declined (rather than reclined… witty I know…).

The doctor understood perfect English, but what came out of his mouth was… well… interesting. It could quite easily have passed for something European perhaps. Maybe half Spanish half Greek? I wasn’t all too sure, but whatever it was, it was not the “very good English” that I’d been promised. This only made my headache worse as I had to decipher everything the doctor said to me. Eventually when he’d checked all he wanted to check and asked all he wanted to ask, he concluded that it was a kidney and/or bladder infection (if he specified at any point which one it was, he said it in Spassian/Russish... Then he brings out the pills and starts explaining what they are. Antibiotics – yes I know those… Mumble mumble gracias Stalin – somehow my mind decided that he’d told me they were pain killers. Anti-breathing agents… I’m sorry what? Antibreathing agents. “Oooooooooohkaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…” says me with a very very confused look on my face, which he obviously picked up. Antibreathing agents foroo zu keedonees.

…

Oh you mean antiBLEEDING agents? Yes yes, antibreathing agents, that’s mumble mumble said.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I was quite relieved to discover the true identity of the little red pills… (appropriate colour for an antibreathing agent, I’d imagine). So after all this, I finally get to pay and leave.

Then it turns out I owe MUCH more than I thought it would be (\4000), so I have to go to the ATM to draw money, and come back again. I manage to get 10 steps out of the clinic before realizing I haven’t put my shoes back on, and I’m still wearing the indoor slippers (oh PS Japanese people often don’t wear their normal shoes inside, but instead go barefoot/with socks, or have special slippers for wearing inside). So I rush back, get my tekkies on, and zoom up the road as fast as I can to get the money to come back to pay the bill to leave the clinic to drink my drugs to stop breathing. :D So after about 3 hours of being processed, I was out, starved and ready to be drugged.

Have I ever told you how much I love KFC?