Sick of being sick

I've got one word for you, and it's not a good one - phlegm.  It sucks to be sick while travelling.  We all know it.  All you want is your own bed, a box of tissues, a cup of fresh juice and some re-runs of Seinfield.  What you don't want, is to be staying in a Japanese room which has no couch, no bed (who can be shagged getting it out of the cupboard?), and nowhere to get comfy.  I lay on the tatami mat floor, after we got home from our little ill fated day-trip yesterday, croaking "There's nowhere to flop, nowheeeerrreeeeee".  There wasn't.  There still isn't.  The cleaners swooped into the room while we were at breakfast and put all the beds away again.  Dam your efficiency, dam it I say.

As far as our day trip to a still standing samurai town goes - I also have a little advice.  When you're thinking to yourself "Hey, maybe I should cart my twins through the snow, while we're all sick, while it's raining, to look at 400 year old dilapidated houses" I would perhaps suggest to think again.  Look, I'm all for a bit of history - I loved The Tudors.  But just watch it on TV.  That's all I've got too say.  So un-enamoured was I, that I didn't even take a single picture for today's entry. Think of my samurai town experience as a non entry.  The twins were so exhausted that they passed out at the train station, which I think is  much more photo worthy than a samurai house covered by snow.

But back to my health.  It's always a bit scary to go to the doctor in another country, when you don't speak the language, don't understand the health system, and most importantly don't have a medicare card. But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and do it.  My one and only Japanese hospital experience happened as a direct result of my bad temper.  It's a little embarrassing, but we're all friends now so let me continue....

About seven years ago I was working in a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo, teaching English at a science university.  The student population was 90% male.  Never in my life had I seen so many geeks....but that's another story. The job description had promised a fully furnished apartment. Little did I realise, that fully furnished meant a thin mattress on the floor and a kettle.  I also had a particularly obnoxious Japanese neighbour who lived underneath me.  He used to get home at 1am, and crank the (bad) music very loud.  As I was sleeping on the floor, it would reverberate into my head.  One night, he must have been on the turps, as he got home late and cranked up the mid 90s techno extra ear blasting.  I tried to be cool with it, but two hours later my patience was spent.

I got out of bed, went downstairs and knocked on his door for a while.  His continual non response resulted in me bashing on his door, and finally making "I'm going to slit your throat" mimes into his security camera. Come to think of it, that's probably why he didn't answer the door....Anyhow, the music continued, and I returned to my room with the idea of banging on the floor during the break between songs.  This proved also unsuccessful, and I ended up jumping up and down with all my might.  As I didn't have a god dam table, I jumped straight on top of a beer glass I'd left on the floor.  It shattered through my foot. I was in a bit of shock and bleeding pretty badly, but I managed to crawl out of my apartment and bang on the door of my next door neighbour, and co-worker, who found me in a pool of blood on his doorstep.  In retrospect I should have just gone to the hospital by ambulance, but being broke, I was worried about the cost, and thought that if I could hang on a few hours, I could ring my company, and they could help me.  It was pretty full on.  My co-worker helped me wash my foot, and take out the big shards.  He was pretty nice to me seeing as he was embarrassed about me seeing his apartment.  He'd been too lazy to take out his garbage and was using the garbage packed bags as kind of bean-bags.  I guess you have to improvise, but it was pretty ghetto.

So I ended up in the hospital the following morning, after a representative from my company came over and took me there by taxi.  The doctor was a prick.  He was none too happy that I'd left it so long to get medical treatment.  I lay on my front, as he approached with a huge needle and jabbed it straight into the biggest open gash on the bottom of my foot really hard.  I don't think I've ever screamed so loud.  He over-vigorously washed out all the glass from my foot too, and wouldn't let me have a pair of crutches, even though I couldn't walk.  One of the nurses took pity on me and smuggled me a pair that looked like they were from 1850.  Made of wood, miles to big with a thin bit of cloth protecting the underarms.  They hurt.  They gave me massive blisters on my palms as well as rubbing skin off my underarms.

The next day there was a note on my door from my company. It was written on pink paper with balloons all over it.  It read;

"Dear Emily Saunders,
We are sorry about your foot.  You will be docked one day of pay for the day you missed while at the hospital.  Plus there will be a cleaning bill of 50 000 yen (about $550) to clean the blood off your carpet.  We hear there is a lot.  Get better soon!"

Did you know a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and dish washing detergent removes blood from carpet? Well you do now.  I did my research, and thus avoided that threatened cleaning fee. The upshot was that they bought everyone a table.  Yay me.

My Japanese hospital experience slightly reminded my of a dinner I once had at Alcatraz ER.  A medical prison themed restaurant in Tokyo.  I'm not usually in for themed restaurants, but sometimes you've got to go extra crazy when in Tokyo.  (I contemplated getting a maid outfit once).  Anyway, in this restaurant, you are the patient.  There are a lot of girls in "blood' splattered nurse outfits and creepy looking doctors. You are seated behind bars, and your 'meal' is served in stainless steel medical dishes.  My red cocktail came in an IV pouch that they ran into my glass.  It was pretty funny.

I'd also like to point out, a meal at Alcatraz ER was much less disturbing than my actual visit to a Japanese hospital.  Well here's hoping I get better soon.....just in case.....In the meantime, I guess I'll just try and get comfortable.  Wish me luck.