Since I’m dragging my feet on my winter vacation post, maybe a quick change of pace will help, so here’s your randomness for the day.
I was sick over my birthday in November. Sick enough to go to a doctor, in fact. Ms. Semba gave me a mask to wear while I slept, with a neat semi-medicated insert. The insert was impregnated with a weakly mediciney-smelling liquid, designed to help keep your nasal passages from getting irritated. Here, for your amusement, I present the picture I took in my bathroom mirror. If you look closely, you can see the holes cut in the insert to allow the wearer to breathe easier.
The doctor’s visit was a trip in itself. He must have been about seventy years old, with one of the worst comb-overs I’ve ever seen, and it looked like he’d not cleaned his desk since he started practicing medicine. He seriously had stacks of paper higher than his head as he was sitting at his desk. The only part he could get to was a small area in the middle- just enough to lay out three or four A4 pages next to each other.
Anyway, he took a cursory look at my throat and threw a whole mess of prescriptions at me: a decongestant, an antiviral(!), something Ms. Semba couldn’t identify, a “Western” antibiotic, an herbal “Eastern” antibiotic (which I could have had as a powder for tea, but chose pill form), and something to settle my stomach from all the other medicines. I think if I’d had elephantitis, it couldn’t have withstood that onslaught. Needless to say, I was all better well before my week-long course of pills ran out. (Another interesting note- the doctor’s office itself dispensed my prescriptions. They gave me blister packs with exactly the number of pills I’d need in a large envelope.)
On my actual birthday, Ms. Semba and Mariya gave me this card. Here’s the text she wrote in the card: “David, You are a precious teacher of ALS, Matsuyama, and you are our nice coworker and friend. When you are sick, we are lavish with help!” Aww. 🙂
In other random news, as I was sitting down to dinner at a local udon shop tonight, a waiter stopped at my table and in heavily accented English proclaimed “Yes, we can!” before carrying on about his business with a smile.
That totally made my night. =)
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