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I’ll do this in English, just cause it’s easier for me and everyone can understand (Canadians and Shimanians). It’s a long one, sorry!! Je m’excuse, j’espere que tout l’monde va comprendre.

So, many things happened since I last posted.

First, I turned 30!!!! Had wonderful parties that I’ll explain in later posts (with pictures). Thank you everyone for a wonderful birthday!!!

Second, the 9th graders graduated. I was sad to see them leave the school cause I really really liked them. But I got to go to the graduation ceremony and I know some of them will come visit the school from time to time, and keep in touch. Email, it’s a wonderful thing.

And finally, the real reason I’m writing this is because I’m in the hospital. I’m getting better, so don’t worry. I’ll explain what happened.

(Pardon the medical mistakes, it’s mostly cause everything was in Japanese, so sometimes I’m guessing. Also, I’m not a doctor.)

About a month ago, I got a stomach flu. Couldn’t eat anything for 3 days or I’d throw up. I was in bed for a week. After that I was getting better, but a few weeks ago, I got a throat infection. I had a sore throat for a week but my glands only got a bit swollen on Friday, March 9th so I went to the local clinic, and got antibiotics. The following day was the graduation. I went and I enjoyed it a lot. That night, the teachers had a party. I went, but wasn’t drinking cause I was on antibiotics. At 9:30, I was a bit tired, so I said bye to everyone and went home to bed. But that’s when my throat really started hurting. At 1:30am, I still couldn’t sleep from the pain. I went on MSN and my great friend Nicola was online. I asked her about “ear-nose-throat” specialists in Matsue (closest city to Higashi izumo). She said that there are some in the big hospitals, but maybe not on Sundays. But, we could go Sunday morning and see a regular doctor…which we did.

I was lucky cause a specialist happened to be there that morning. This doctor told me the initial virus I had earlier that week had changed and was now bacterial. So he took some blood, put a camera up my nose to check my throat, changed my medication, and told me to come back the following day (Monday) at 11:30am to check if the meds were working. So, I had a light lunch with Nic, bought some vegetable juices, fruit jelly and went home to rest. I mostly slept and woke up to take my medicine.

On Monday morning, the pain in my throat was more intense (and the left side of my throat had doubled in size), I had trouble breathing and my fever (which had been 37.4C) was now 38.8C. I emailed Nicola to say that I was gonna go to the hospital now, cause I would rather wait there than in my apartment, in case anything were to happen. I also emailed Chigusa to see if she could drive me to the hospital. Both came with me (THANK GOD!!!) Even if my appointment was just at 11:30, the doctor saw me within 10 minutes. When he saw me, he said I should go to a different hospital (Matsue’s Red Cross Hospital) cause there were more specialists there. I went, got an IV put in my arm, got a chest x-ray, heart electro-something, CT scan, 2 ultra sounds (on my neck), a camera up my nose to check my larynx (again), blood test, etc. It took most of the day. At about 4:30, 2 doctors came to see me, and the doctor from the other hospital came too!! The 3 of them explained to Nicola in Japanese and she translated.


The initial virus had weakened my throat so that a bacteria had gotten into my lymph gland and formed an abscess of puss deep in my neck. Usually, they could have gotten most of the infection out with a needle, but it was located next to 2 main veins and so they needed to operate. Cut the side of my neck (about 8cm) to take it out. Ok….ok….breathe, operation in Japan? Ok, I can do this, but no, that wasn’t all of it. To top it off, I had laryngitis. My larynx (air way in my throat) had swollen too much and too fast, and they were afraid it would be completely blocked soon. So I had to have a tracheotomy. (This is were they cut a hole in my throat and insert a tube to help me breathe.) Fun fun!! So I asked when they were going to do this….tomorrow? They said, no, in 20 minutes. (for those who understands this, my CRP (some sort of protein created by the liver) had gone from 9.5 on Sunday, to 22.7 on Monday. They said the general amount is 0 to 0.5. This was another reason to operate fast)

Breathe, breathe, panic, tears, breathe, WHAT????? Ok, ok, breathe…….WHAT??? How can a sore throat elevate to an operation?!?!?!?!?!? Breathe….And that was it. I went to the washroom, gave Nicola my email address and password in case something happen and she needed to email my family and friends. And went under the knife.

Chigusa and Nicola stayed with me that night at the hospital. They were GREAT!!! For the first week, they took turns to make sure I was never alone, especially cause I couldn’t talk. They made schedules and asked people to come help me. I could write, and wrote many pages to communicate, but it was a great relief to have both of them with me. I am very lucky to have such great GREAT friends!!

I’m a lot better now. It’s been over a week. For the first 3 days, I couldn’t breathe through my mouth, walk, or eat. I was on an IV, they checked my blood content, my blood pressure, my temperature, my oxygen intake etc every hour….they still do most of that now, too, but not as often.

Last Thursday (the 15th) my larynx was back to normal, so they changed my tube to a smaller one with a cap on it. When I put the cap on, I can breathe through my mouth and eat!!! YAY!

I got another CT scan on Monday the 19th. It showed that the swelling had gone down, but part of the abscess was still there. So I have to stay in the hospital for at least another week.

The nurses and doctors here are very nice. That really makes a difference. Some try to talk English. Most of them can’t, but they are very kind. I’m glad my Japanese is good enough to understand most of what they say now that I know the routine. Thanks to Nicola, Chigusa and the nurses, I know a lot more medical Japanese!!

A lot of my JET friends have come to visit, as well as some teachers from school, friends from my board of education, friends from taiko, my Japanese teacher and her family, my eikaiwa students etc. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
All in all, I have many people to support me in this very scary time in Japan. Getting the “whole” Japanese experience I guess! But it’s great to see and realized how great these friendships have become.

It’s been a long post, but just a few funny Japanese hospital stories.

-when they first washed my mouth after the operation, it was with tea!
-you have to bring your own utensils, tissues (Kleenex), towels etc. from home (which of course, I hadn’t brought cause I wasn’t thinking of staying 2-3 weeks in a hospital)
-the first food they made me try to eat was tea jelly! mmmm…

I don’t have access to email (a friend of mine is posting this), so I’m sorry everyone got to hear about this so late. I won’t be able to check my email for at least another week, so I’m sorry if I don’t reply soon. I hope you are all ok!!

One last story :

When I woke up from the anesthesia, I couldn’t talk so Nicola told me everything went well, and asked me to write something. I scribbled a few things, but they couldn’t make out what I had written. Nicola said they couldn’t understand and to try again. So I wrote, in kanji “What time is in now?” Am I turning Japanese???????

Again, I hope you are all ok, sorry for the long post. Love you lots!!!!

HUGS!!!!