Day 7 and 8

As spring break ticks away here in Japan, so do the day at the hospital. My friends are all out on vacation, but in here I am the one on a freaking trip. Like a hallucinogenic trip there are ups and downs, and also the distinct possibility that the trip can turn bad. Somethings that happen are entirely unbelievable but yet they are completely real, just the opposite of the aforementioned hallucinogenics.

Day 7

Up with the slow rise of dawn...oh how I wish. It is more like up with the blink and flicker of the florescent lights being snapped on at six in the morning. The only sunshine is in the voice of the offending nurse as she greets us with an “ohayo gozaimasu”. The morning routine seems to be slightly different everyday, and I hadn't got it quite figured out.

The time between the cheerful good morning and feeding time is a dreamy mix of semi-conciousness and sleep. Sometimes a nurse comes and shoves a thermometer in my face and asks me to put it under my arm, and some of those times she grabs my arm and starts to take my blood pressure. Other mornings its a needle in the arm, and an empty cup on the table, with instructions to fill it...and don't forget. One time I was so irritated I filled it to the brim, but low and behold the damn nurse never came to pick it up. Don't forget, ha.

I was under the impression that every morning we were given piping hot face towels, and asked it we want a nurse to wipe us down (until we can shower of course). Today is different though, as I never got a towel. In fact I didn't even know that the nurse had come to bring them, until she left the room taking my room mate's towel away. For the life of me I can't understand why I wasn't offered one; they wake me up to stick me and prick me, but I guess my feeling clean is not on their priority list.

Furthermore, I received said sponge (really a towel, my towel) bath only once... and that was the day after surgery. A few days have passed since then, and with my post-operative fever I am starting to rival a block of very good cheese. I finally had enough this morning and when what ever two of the twelve doctors did rounds I demanded to know when I could shower. When they told me that once my staples were pulled in a few weeks I would be able to shower, the anger in my voice started to rival the stench wafting from my unmentionable parts. The nurses saved the situation by saying I could cover my leg in plastic, and the doctor agreed. I asked the nurse to sign me up for a time slot in the shower room, and to inform me of what time that would be at. She of course said yes, and the like the current state of the polar ice caps, she disappeared never to be seen again.

As breakfast was being dropped off, I asked a few questions. First off, it was still my Mum's birthday in Canada and I wanted to buy some internet time and make a call to send my best wishes. On top of that I had some laundry to do (especially with my semblance to cheese). I knew I was starting physiotherapy, so I was inquiring as to what time that was at. Food times are set, so I was trying to calculate what the most efficient way to do my chores was. I asked two separate nurses on to separate occasions, only to have them never return.

I proceeded to make my phone call before the head nurse came in to introduce myself and my room mate to three new nursing staff...she did not introduce them to us. I stopped her and asked her about the physio schedule and explained why I wanted to know. She said she would get back to me when she had done the rounds with the newbies. Bless her heart she got back to me. I just wish it was in a different manner.

The buzz of the intercom near my head was quickly followed the head nurse telling me to go to physio...now. I had a moment of rage, and a moment of panic, and then I told her I would have to put on some underwear and shorts as I was still in my pyjamas. I rushed down to physio and luckily beat the masses. That is understandable even on my crutches, as the masses mostly consist of two breeds, the Japanese Silver-haired Giichan and Baachan. My trainer introduced herself. She showed me where to sit, and how to wear my brace, and then she slapped some ankle weights on me. She got me started before running off to deal with no less that six other patients. She periodically came back and assigned me the next set of exercises. They hurt, and they are tough, but I persevered. Roughly two hours later she released me with the instructions to return in the afternoon. Thankfully she gave me a time.

Back to the sixth floor and time for laundry. The washing machine was not that hard to figure out, it eats lots of money and quite possibly the occasional sock. Two bucks later, my skivvies and my towels were getting clean. Oh how I envied them.

Food came and went, the dryer swallowed more of my money, and soon again it was down to physio again. The same set, but this time unsupervised. The biggest difference however was that this time I didn't forget my music. All was good until I was interrupted and told I had visitors.

Maryuyama-sensei and Chie-sensei from Kosha had come to visit. I called it a day, and we went to chat in the sixth floor lounge. Bless their hearts; they brought flowers and strawberries (which I am eating now). These two wonderful ladies were a few of my best friends as Kosha. The three of us sat together in the teachers room, and Maruyama-sensei was the head of the English department. Even my eyes got tears earlier this year when I learned that they were both getting transferred to different schools next year. About half and hour in, and in the midst of a great chat, a nurse came running over a blabbed some super fast Japanese. Bless her heart, Maruyama-sensei translated that all the doctors (as in all twelve) were about to do rounds and I was required to be in my bed. This being the first I had ever heard of this I was quite shocked, but my friends cut our chat short and took their leave.

I raced to my bed, hopped out of the wheel chair and manoeuvred into the iron frame. Then I did what I seem to do the best at this hospital, wait. After the passage of a few minutes my room suddenly became a sea of white. I say there were twelve doctors, but in all honesty it was hard to tell where one doctor became the next. The chief doctor, and a good English speaker, Akizuki-sensei led the pack. After a few words with my room mate it was on to me. He first asked how I felt, to which I answered fine. Then he picked up my leg and wiggled it a bit, following up with a question on my impressions of Japanese hospitals. First off I could tell he was showing off his English in front of the other doctors, and secondly I could tell he had pre-expected answers to his questions. When I told him that it was a beautiful hospital with good doctors, he seemed pleased. But continuing with my impression that the hospitalization process in Canada was better, he got a little agitated. I forget what he said next, but as swift as it flowed in, the wave of white coats washed out the door. The whole process took under a minute, leaving me angry that I had to return to my bed for such trivial questions and that my friends started a long drive home because of a sixty second check up.

Soon after, Yuriko showed up. She and I set off to get more change for the bottomless (and apparently pointless) clothes dryer. Utterly aggravated by the hurry up and wait for a freaking pointless check up, I was on the war path. It was then, as I walked past the front desk that they informed me that I had a six o'clock shower slot. Six is dinner time, as I informed them. They told me I could eat first the shower, and it was just then that I looked at the clock and realized that it was now five. The nuclear phase of my war path was completed.

Even Yuriko's carafe of coffee couldn't calm my nerves. Kenan mentioned Kafka in his comment to my previous post, and to be honest I have been feeling the same. With the apparently lack of a daily schedule, the sudden appointments, and the complete lack of control over my time, I was really close to meltdown. The lack of effort in communication by many nurses and the prison like life style were running their course on me. I no longer felt that my life was even mine. Before my hospital stay, the doctors had translated the patient contract verbally for me, and I stamped my approval on the Japanese document. Did they forget to mention these things? Or perhaps they didn't even translate what I stamped, but I authorized it never the less.

Yuriko has been so supportive, and she listened to me list my grievances. It was then that she pulled out a pen and some paper and we started making a list. In the end it came to a few major points. I need to know the daily schedule so that I can plan when to do my errands. I need the nurses to read me the food menu (all in Kanji) so I can actually choose between meal A and B, and understand what it is that I am ordering. There were some other points as well, but the one the held the most importance was schedule. I needed to know that they had a schedule, because I was very afraid of the consequences of they didn't.

I ate dinner, and went to the shower. Yuriko and I planned that she would talk to the staff while I was cleaning, and that the two of us and a nurse would sit down after and talk through the solutions to the problems I was having. As I was getting ready to wash there was a knock on the changing room door. It was Patronizing Nurse (PN) again. I let her in, as I still had pants on, and she handed me a schedule with food times, and blanks for me to write in the times that physio and I decided. I couldn't believe it. I explained to her that those times were the same everyday, and I had already figured those out. The times of other things like rounds, and what check-ups will be done that day (and when) was what I was looking for. She spurted unintelligible Japanese. When I told her I didn't understand she repeated herself, or said something else equally mystifying. That dumb show proceeded, as I got more and more frustrated. I finally broke into English and explained that: she understands simple English, but if I speak very quickly using complex words and grammar that there is no chance she will ever understand what I am saying, and that they exact reverse of that is what was currently taking place. I stopped and asked in Japanese if she understood. When she said 'no,' I said 'exactly.' It was then that I pushed her out the door, and reiterated that she could talk with Yuriko and I after my shower.

Physically refreshed, I put on some clean clothes and my game face. It was time for showdown in the lounge Monday Night Edition. She came and sat down, but nothing was getting through. At first she couldn't comprehend what I meant by daily routine (even with Yuriko translating), and when she finally did she insisted that no such thing existed. I stood up and announced that if that was the case that I was removing myself from their care, or the quite obvious lack-there-of. Yuriko said something different in Japanese to calm PN down. (I think the fact that it was PN made it all the worse for me.)

After Yuriko explained what I meant by schedule in a few different ways, the nurse said that I must have received a colourful piece of paper that explained all this. I carry every paper I got from the hospital in a shoulder bag (good old A type) and I pulled out the folder. They are all white. I started pulling them all out and we finally came to a white piece of paper that gives the roughest sketch of what will happen over the course of a month. Needless to say it is all in Japanese, but I went to the effort of translating it with my English teachers.

I opened it up, she beamed that it was the right paper, and the smile was instantly shoved back to the pit of her stomach as I lashed out again that it wasn't good enough since there were no specifics as to date and time, and that it was a farce since certain things (like getting cleaned) were not happening. I wanted a schedule that was on a daily level, and it would be best if there were estimated times, but I would settle for morning/afternoon/evening, and hell even just knowing what the day had in-store even if there was no associated time. I didn't need it then, but just being informed of the daily schedule in the mornings would be enough for me. She tried to explain that it was simply impossible, as the nurses in the morning don't know what will happen because the doctor's haven't decided what will happen that day. When I asked to be informed when they schedule was created, she also thought that was impossible. It got to the point where Yuriko finally stopped me, and told the nurse to get a doctor.

The doctor came, and I spared him none of my wrath. I was polite (mostly), but forceful. He was gracious, and actually quite understanding. He told me that they all understood that they didn't know how to help me the best way, since my cultural background is so much different. He listened to what I had to say, and he finally had a chat with the nurse.

After he left, she opened my folder, and started reading through the schedule inside. She told me when I get needles, and when I pee in a cup. She told me of X-rays and MRIs. She taught me when the doctors do rounds, and for which of those I have to be in my room. In the end, I had a schedule that, while not complete, was a framework to plan my life a bit. I pleaded to be informed of anything that gets added. There was a bloody schedule all along! Why was it so difficult for them to tell me that? And why did she say that it didn't exist? Argh.

In the end, she pulled out a form that was the nursing staff's “care form” for me. It listed the major points that they were trying to ensure, including being better with communication and asking to use my dictionary (things that came from a previous scuffle that Yuriko helped me with), and also the standards of making risk assessments and making sure I don't fall or get injured. I thanked her, as it was nice to know that they had a document like that. She then turned it around and asked me to sing the bottom. I stated I wasn't singling another damn form in Japanese because that has caused me enough grief already. She was about to argue, so I took the paper and wrote “NO.” After an explanation by Yuriko, she put the thing in an online translator that came back with some weird kind of pseudo-English. It doesn't make that much sense, but I singed it, cause hey it doesn't make sense so it doesn't mean anything.

After the whole ordeal, my torn ACL buddy Koyasu-san came over. Somehow we got going on why I was so irritated, and I got into how I was reminded of Kafka. That started it. The three of us were grabbing for the electronic dictionary and it turned into an hour long chat about life and philosophy. Even though we were translating to each other, we had a really meaning full chat, and I felt remarkably better. But I was left with another thought: how could we talk in two different languages about existentialism, metaphysics, and other complex topics so easily, but the nursing staff seems unable to get anything across to me?

Day 8

Today was smooth sailing. I got my original room and window spot back. I went to physio twice, and I can tell that my leg is stronger every time I go.

There is only one thing that troubled me today. A decent night's sleep has evaded me since coming to the hospital, but this was something different. I have woken up a sweat a few times, and just passed it off on my post-op fever. Last night however, I distinctly remember a rather strange dream. It is not so much a nightmare, bad dream, or scary dream, as much as it is simply disturbing. I remember it thoroughly, but awake I don't understand why it disturbs me so. What really gets me, is that when I awoke remembering this dream, I also realized that I have had this dream repeatedly in the last few nights.

It has nothing do do with hospitals or doctors, but rather trains. It is very bizarre, and I must spend more time contemplating it. There must be some connection to the hospital stay and the events in the dream. I'll think more on it, and hopefully I won't experience it again tonight...but if I do that will just make contemplating it easier.

Kenan, you told me not to cut my posts short, and this is far from it. I breached page five, it is well past lights out, and the nurses let me stay in the lounge to write. Now I have to pee...and to be honest I don't know how much more I could write tonight. I hope you all enjoyed reading the insanity that is currently my life.