DearScotty

You know that feeling you get when you’re stuck in in the waiting room at your Doctor’s office? You become sicker than ever because you fear that you might contract one of the many diseases that’s sitting next to you reading last month’s issue of Highlights? You’re afraid to put your hands on anything because you know only sick people have been where you are now. Well, do you also know the euphoric feeling of finally being in a place that feels familiar after having been gone for a while? I think McDonald’s capitalizes on that feeling and so tries their best to make all McDonald’s around the world, pretty much the same just so you get that feeling of home. Well, combine the two mentioned feelings and you’ll know the struggle I went through as I found myself in a waiting room that felt like home next to people coughing and sneezing and giving me looks like they hope I catch what they have.

Something tells me to wake up. Something is out of the ordinary this morning. Ah! The alarm didn’t go off! I look into the living room to catch the time but everything is a bit blurry. I grab my phone, but when I open it, I just get a black screen. The time on the outside of the phone says 2:22. There’s no way I slept in that late! I quickly jump up and run to catch the time on the clock in the living room. The clock says, “You’re a moron, it’s 8:30 and you should be at school 10 minutes ago.” Fuck me. How am I going explain this one? I can only say phone in Japanese, not alarm, broken, froze… “Forget it!,” I think as I grab my useful guide to teaching in Japan book. I look up how to call the school to let them know that I’m not coming in because I don’t feel well. I manage to get through, read the set phrase, and hear that the guy on the other line understood, “Ah, wakarimashita, yasumi!” Sweet, easier than I thought

Since I’m up, I turn Lost back on. The last thing I saw was Locke at the hatch when the light turned on. I have to know what happens next. They’re popping Boone’s leg back in place and my phone rings. I hear that they’re coming to take me to the doctors. Great! I call up Theresa trying to find out if she has any sick fake-out pointers. She says, go with the sinus headache, they won’t be able to tell if you’re lying. Perfect plan. I now have sinus problems. A woman from the town office comes and we may small talk on the way to the doctor. I point to my head and say “Oww,” She says a bunch of stuff in Japanese and we reach the doctor’s office.

The office is really nice. There are Christmas decorations up and they even have that familiar suspended TV looking down on us. I’m really starting to dig it. Wow, I could be in America right now. But then, I look around a bit more and see sick people staring down the foreigner, probably wondering what strange foreign diseases I might force upon them. I am trapped in this purgatory for more than an hour.

I’m finally called in and the doctor who thankfully speaks English starts to perform some tests. He starts out by checking my fingernails then says it’s time for pulse. He asks me to open my mouth and I even throw in an “Ahh.” A nurse comes from behind me and grabs onto my shirt. “Oh shit, this is going to be a beat down!” She lifts up my shirt and pulls it up to my shoulders, “Oh god, I’m not sick, I just didn’t know how to say my alarm clock broke in Japanese… I swear!” I must have pissed them off earlier when I refused to piss on cue for them. I tried to tell them I already emptied out this morning. “We check your breathing.” He pulls out the stethoscope and begins to listen in, all the while the nurse is behind me putting me in some strange got your shirt now you’re in a choke hold move. We finish up the tests and the doc informs me of my plight, “Diagnosis: Cold”

Finally that’s over, oh great, “do we have to go to the pharmacy?” I thought the waiting was over but now I’m stuck at the pharmacy waiting for cold medicine. The office worker left me, so I’m stuck watching a fishing show. She finally returns but with money in hand. She pays for the medicine and also gives me money for the visit I had to pay for at the Doctor’s. Turns out, I’m up 700 yen. This day’s turning out to be not so bad. The pharmacist tries to explain how to take the medicine. I think he was speaking English but I couldn’t really pay attention because I was staring down the 5 different medicines they were giving me. I’m actually starting to feel sick and get it in my head that I should take 3 a day of everything.

I get home start some coffee, get to work on my walnut muffin and put Lost back on. My first time calling out sick. I’m proud of myself. Hopefully, this is the first of many to come.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 11:42 am and is filed under pictures!, about my day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.