My First Doctor's Visit

I met Ben outside of the Harimacho station at 10 to 9 on Saturday morning. Our plan was to get to the Ear/Nose/Throat doctor just before 9 and be the first in line. Well, apparently, we didn’t get the memo that you need to be not 10, but 15, minutes early, as we found ourselves placed in the back of a rather crowded waiting room upon our arrival. Ben helped me fill out some of the forms (even if you know the right words, the kanji is hard!) and waited with me until he had to leave for his morning class. Ironically, the nurse called my name (mak-ki-ni-sa-ma) to indicate it was my turn within minutes of his departure.

So the first strange thing about Japanese clinics is that you wait forever, very patiently (and sans shoes, as usual), and then you are rushed through the actual visit so feverishly, that you walk out with the medicine, almost as if it’s the only proof that the whirlwind examination had ever even taken place.

When I heard my name, I quickly stood up (“hai!”) and walked over to the door where the nurse was standing with her clipboard. I was ushered to a bench inside a smaller, side room that served as the main doctor’s room (they only had one doctor). I had been sitting on the bench for about 2 minutes when they called my name again and ushered me over to the patient seat, which largely resembled a dentist’s chair. The doctor said hello and proceeded to hover over me, peering down at my face through his spectacles, while three nurses stood to my left, ready to move-in upon command. The doctor started to shoot questions at me in Japanese, asking specifics about my condition. I don’t even know where it came from, but feeling under pressure, I started to spout out my symptoms in Japanese, in very fragmented bits I had somehow either heard or picked up somewhere (if I hadn’t looked them up in the last few days).

Ears. Ringing. Nose. Full. Dizzy. Last week, no see. Head. Hurts. Throat. Hurts.

Oww! (pointing at my throat).

The doctor took mental notes of what I was saying (or else he was trying to find definitions behind my jumbled Japanese?) and told me to tilt my head back. He then stuck a tiny, little tube up my nose and sprayed something. Then another tube, and then a third little metal prober with some liquid that hurt so badly it made my eyes cry as I flinched in pain. They told me to open my moute (by the nurse motioning towards my mouth), and then the doctor approached me to inspect my throat, holding my tongue with gauze. I was a little overwhelmed and a bit disgusted from the spray and gauze, but then the doctor said something to me. Oh oh...I didn’t understand. He repeated it. Didn’t understand. “X-ray”, someone said. I said, OK.

I was ushered to a small closet area, literally closed off with accordion-like sliding doors, on the side of the room with the nurses, placed on a small stool in front of the X-ray machine, and told to put my nose on the middle of the piece of paper with a big X drawn on it. Snap. Take one. Then again, the nurse adjusted my head, this time with my forehead on the middle of the paper. Snap. Take two. And that was it.

The nurse that had just taken my X-rays brought me over to a sink area with long, thick tubes that were coming out of the wall and resting in the basin of a large, metal sink. The nurse then gave me a big, plastic tube contraption with two openings to go up my noise and I was told to inhale whatever it was coming out of the tube until the bar of little red lights on the machine in front of me (on the wall) had disappeared. So I did what she said; as the next patient was ushered to the dentist’s chair in back of me. I sat quietly, inhaling the mystery vapors, examining the toys and stuffed animals on the ledge in front of me**. There was a big Genie lamp from Allegra. Another stuffed toy from Tylenol. Wow, these companies really do tailor things to Japan.

My lights slowly filtered down and disappeared. I was taken off of the breathing device and ushered back to the chair. The doctor and nurses hovered as before, while pictures of my skull illuminated from the light box on the wall to my right. The doctor walked over and pointed to my skull, drawing circles around my sinuses. I still have zero idea what he was talking about. Then, to my surprise, he came over and told me – in English – that he was prescribing a medication to make my sinuses feel better. It was for 5 days, part of it was powder (instead of pills – you literally pour a little packet of powder on your tongue and down some water!). I know most doctors in Japan speak at least a little English, mainly due to the fact that a lot of their medical textbooks are in English, but I was taken off gaurd. The serenity of hearing my native tongue in a bizarre and unfamiliar atmosphere eased me, however. I then asked him about my throat and a strep test, also in English. The nurse had me tilt my head back again, and we went through the whole nose spray ordeal again as I winced in pain. Then he put a metal clamp on my tongue and looked down my throat with what might have been a little camera. Two seconds later, I had a prescription for my cough, but no strep test*.

The next thing I new, I was back in the main waiting room. I watched kids play in the play area, while the echoes of coughing visitors filled the room. After about another 10 minutes, I was called up to the reception desk and given my medical insurance card back (national health care plan). The visit, including X-rays and filling the prescriptions on-site, came to $26. Not bad. Wonder if Michael Moore will talk about Japan in his new film, Sicko? Anyways, upon paying the bill, I was told to step to the right where my medicines were waiting. In simple Japanese, the receptionist explained the medical directions (three pills twice a day, two pills and the powder three times a day). And I was off.

So the visit was a littel strange, but I survived and hope the antibiotics will help. On the topic of Japan and sickness, however, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised or ill-prepared for a full waiting room on this visit. While it was my first time at the doctor’s office, summer is actually a really common time for people to get sick here (and it’s not just attributed to finals and stress, as I mentioned in a previous post). For example, in Japan, there is a really common illness called reibobyo (or air conditioner sickness).

So, for example, where I live is REALLY hot and muggy in the summer... 80% humidity today (and no rain)! Due to the fact that most buildings (read: ALL buildings) in Japan don't have insulation, we don't always use heat or air conditioning. No joke. My school windows are open in the dead of winter and people use fans in the summer. Not everyone follows this norm, however, and for those that don't, this reibobyo (again, air conditioning sickness) is actually a really common, and recognized, illness resulting from the extreme change in temperature when going from air conditioning inside to the intense heat outside. A lot of people have asked me if I use air conditioning when they have realized I am sick in the last week. To combat this trend, there is, however, apparently a Japanese custom called なつばて (summer lethargy). It’s still not laid back here like how you might think of latin America, but people definitely move slower in the summer than in the winter. The heat just eats your energy. I’ve asked why we don’t just take a siesta (even my cousins in Greece do it to avoid the extreme mid-day heat), but all I have gotten back on that one is a “yes, we should import that idea”. I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon (at least while I’m living here), so I guess my only option is to rest up for now and try not to overdo it on the air conditioning. Cheers to finally getting some meds!

* In Japan, the system is a bit different. You tell them what you want cured, and they give you meds for it, rather than them telling you what is wrong and then prescribing medications. This being said, it is also one of the only ways to actually get real drugs to help with illness (all over-the-counter Western medication is extremely weak)
**I don't think I would have been so eager to just inhale some random substance or be ushered around in the same fashion if my Japanese was better or I was more familiar with the situation. But this was another first, and (hopefully) they were helping me.