Doctor’s Note
The microchip has been compromised.
If you don’t understand that Parks and Rec reference than I suggest you stop whatever you are doing to watch the flu episode. An episode that I could be an extra in right now due to 1) flu season 2) a poorly timed ski field trip and 3) a deep longing to somehow be involved in those fictional character’s lives.
On Friday, things were getting sniffly, but I figured that was just a perk of my super sexy susceptibility to allergies. I’m allergic to the finer things in life, and nature, and not a day goes by that doesn’t involve me blowing an inappropriate snot bubble or sneezing like a fog horn during a moment of office silence. Saturday, things were escalating and it looked as though my nose may actually be rubbing off due to the multitude of kleenexes that were coming in scratchy contact with it. So Sunday, we thought, let’s be practical. Let’s be preventative. Let’s not get out of bed and watch Making a Murderer all day so that I will be ready to perform my civic duty of teaching tomorrow’s generation tomorrow. Sunday turned out to be a great day. (Although not for the reputation of the justice system in Wisconsin. They are always trying to remain in my high esteem and I regretfully will have to say that they have fallen from my good graces.)
I woke up on Monday and decided to have a quick shower to erase the remains of flaming hot cheetos and 6 pieces of toast from my extremities. It was in this steamy shower that I begin having intense chest pains and feeling generally overheated. That feeling did not stop. When you feel very overheated in a very cold apartment, that’s when some people, like maybe your strapping husband, feel your forehead and come away with a third degree burn. I was going to have to call in sick.
It’s not that I fear the doctor. I just would rather stick a hot fork in my eye then go to his office, alone, when I feel very shitty. And that’s on a good day in a country that I can verbally communicate with said doctor. Unfortunately for me, to call in sick, I would need a doctors note. The medical community of Shimane had me right where they wanted me. My first reaction was to not go. Maybe I’d just sleep a little more and then go to school in the afternoon. But soon that was not looking likely. My brain was literally trying to escape from my skull. I spent all morning using reverse psychology and other tricks on myself to try to get me out of bed and en route to the clinic. This process was expedited late morning when I started feeling really bad, I couldn’t tell if it was in relation to the excessive amounts of the telenovela I was watching, or the fact that my head had never felt so heavy and full of snot. It was time to go.
I approached the check in counter cautiously. I did my best to say “sick” in Japanese to the attendant who looked as stressed out as I did. She started making gestures to figure out what hurt and I just nodded, it all hurt. She wrote some stuff down and gave me a thermometer with graphic instructions on where to stick it (under my arm, but, we had just met. She owes me dinner.)
Eventually, I was shuffled into the doctor’s room. The man spoke medical English. That is how I found out that I have only the slightest grip on medical English terms. Still I have no idea what he was saying about my throat. He was nervous and after establishing with me that my head hurt he wasted no time preparing the nurse to give me a shot. A shot??? What had I done? Was it something I said?
“Okay. This won’t be painful. This is not painful.” He grabbed my arm and proceeded to give me the most painful injection of mystery liquid that I have ever received. What was he shooting into my veins? Was he euthanizing me? He had to be euthanizing me. I reached for a hand to hold but had only my own. That was a really hard moment to swallow for me. I started breathing again in relief as he finally pulled the needle out but had to stop as he began vigorously massaging the point of entry.
“See! No Pain. Right? Did you feel pain.” I wanted to be brave but alas I was having an inner panic attack.
“I felt pain.”
“Oh, really? Okay. Well go to the waiting room for ten minutes. If you have an adverse effect, tell someone immediately.” As he was saying this, blackness was coming in around the edges of my vision and I felt sure I was going to throw up on my new doctor. But I was scared to tell the medical professional that I was a weeny so on very unsure footing I went back to the waiting room and began to have spiraling daymares about what had just been injected into my body and wondering if I was strong enough to text a few goodbyes to family and close friends. I wasn’t.
Luckily, I managed to stay upright and even browse Twitter, (slowly, tweet by tweet) as I came down from my panic attack. I had not been euthanized. My arm was less numb. I would live to see another meal.
I was pulled back into the doctors office for my prescriptions. Spoiler alert, I had no less than 9 prescriptions (ie. one less than 10) (Ie. more than 8) for my “common cold.” I had one antibiotoic and 8 other drugs that I’m not entirely sure what they do except that one is for “preventing sputen.” As Collin later pointed out, it’s enough to tranquilize a horse. Luckily, I am slightly bigger than a horse so I am in no danger of tranquilization, I assume.
He packed up all my prescriptions and was ready to see me on my way but I hadn’t gotten the one thing I had come here for: a doctor’s note. (In all fairness to them though, I had gotten a lot of other things, like a goody bag full of pills.) It was then that he gave me the news, I would not be ready to go back to school for two days. Whatever you say doc. He started to explain that I would probably have to keep coming back for my shots if my fever continued to be so high. (This was the first and last time that the shot’s intended use was ever alluded to). He began again to explain when and why I would need to keep coming back into the palm of the medial community within the next few days. I respectfully disagreed but did not explain that to him. He went back to the note. As he wrote out the days of my mandatory bed rest, he stopped and looked up at me.
“You will probably speak with the students when you go back.”
“Well, yeah. I try to avoid them but usually I can’t get through the day without talking at them once or twice.”
“Okay you can’t go back to school for three days. You are very contagious.” With that, he signed the note and instructed me to eat a lot of nutrients. Finally, an instruction I was happy to follow. I walked out of the clinic a free woman and straight into a grocery store for some grilled cheese makings. Nutrients, here I come.
Being sick is, pardon my euphemism, the worst. Especially in a foreign country where your ailment isn’t even described to you before you are under the needle. I did my best to be brave and not pass out in the waiting room. And now I’m doing my best not to let the 30 mph winds of the winter storm and handful of drugs lull me to sleep before I am finished documenting my germ ridden start to the week. It’s times like these that it’s important to look at the people in your life a little harder, take a few steps back from them, avoid them entirely, and pray not to succumb to the germs they are probably carrying. It’s a rough and tumble world out there. Stay sweet.
