Japanese Hospital

The Japanese are very clean people. They take their shoes off when inside so as not to get anything dirty. The cafeteria has sinks just as you enter so that you can wash your hands. And when Japanese are sick, or might be sick, or have allergies that make them cough or sneeze they wear surgical masks in public. It is good manners to wear the mask so that you do not spread your germs and make other people sick. I will say, however, the masks are obnoxious. They are hard to breathe through and whenever I exhaled it fogged up my glasses. But I was courteous and kept it on.

Sunday night I felt byooki (sick), like I was coming down with something. I just took it easy and went to bed fairly early. I felt better as I pushed through the next day, but my roommate was very concerned and told our dorm mother and the RAs that I was sick. They were all worried that I had swine flu. Even though I seriously doubted it, I decided to go to the campus clinic the next morning for their sake (and for my mother's). I got to school about 8:30 to find out that the clinic doesn't open until 9:00. So I waited and tried not to fall asleep. The nurse showed up before nine and kindly saw to me. She asked what was wrong and I did my best to explain my symptoms, looking up words in my little dictionary. She took my temperature from under my arm and announced that I should go to the hospital. So, one of the staff members from the CIE walked me down the street to the byooin.

It was more of a small clinic than a hospital. We took our shoes off and put on the visitors slippers they provided at the front door. We were shown around the corner to wait and the CIE woman translated the paperwork for me. There weren't many people there and I was surprised we were seen so quickly, we only waited like 40 minutes, though it did feel much longer. The staff person interpreted between me and the doctor. She asked questions, looked at my throat, listened to my heart and thumped on my back. The worst part was she took a long thin stick and stuck it up my nose and twisted it around in order to test for influenza. That hurts. We waited ten minutes for the results, and as I thought, no influenza. She did prescribe me some medications though. The visit cost just over 6000 yen which is roughly 65 US dollars.

Next we trekked down the street to the pharmacy. It was like a small shop and we didn't have to remove our shoes. We filled out another form and then waited for a short while for the prescriptions to be filled. They gave me so many medications--thankfully they had labels with English on them so I can be sure of the instructions. They gave me a dark liquid which I must mix with water and gargle with 3 times a day--I haven't tried it yet, I'm a bit nervous. There is a set of pills that I take twice a day for the fever. Then there are four sets of pills which I take 3 times a day--one is an antibiotic, and the others treat various symptoms. The medicines altogether cost just over 3000 yen.

With all that settled I profusely thanked the staff woman from CIE, who told me to go back to the seminar house and "take a rest." So I made the long walk back to the seminar house and have been trying to relax here. It is difficult knowing I am missing classes, but a fever is an important reason to stay home I suppose.

The timing is also terrible. I am having a hard enough time managing, being forced to stay to myself and feeling ill is just like pouring salt on the wound. I want to go home.