Burnin' Health

So...I had intended to write a really nice and poignant post about being in Japan on the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, but I couldn't come up with anything that fit the bill. It was a rather unspectacular day here in Japan. I went to get my yearly health check (more on that later). That night, we had our English society as well. I will say that in attendance at that meeting was an 82-year-old woman who would have been 11 when Japan entered the war with the U.S. My grandfather was a bomber in WW2 in the Pacific, and yet here we are, 70 years after the fact, speaking as friends in Japan. It's funny how the world works right? 

I have been reading a book for a while on the history of D-Day. I have a tremendous level of respect for veterans of all wars, but especially for those of World War 2. I can't imagine fighting a war under those conditions. It is moving to read the stories of bravery, brotherhood and sacrifice. I am extraordinarily proud to be an American, but I am even more proud of the goodness in people to resolve conflict after the fact and come together. I believe me living in Japan is a testament to that. 

 Health time! I went to get my annual checkup and they do it differently than we do in the U.S. It is actually more like a book fair than a health check. They pull up a bunch of busses that have the different stations for health. They had an X-ray bus, a CAT scan bus and all sorts of stuff.

 I snapped this picture of the eye test station. Getting a health check in Japan was a harrowing experience for me. Evidently I was supposed to bring my urine sample already prepared...I neglected to do so, and found myself standing in line with a cup of pee with other people watching me. They organize it a lot like a buffet, you just go from station to station. After the urine sample test (which I guess I passed), I went to the lady who asks you a bunch of medical questions. Answering medical questions is significantly more stressful when you are can't speak the language. She asked me something about hospital (the only word I know) and blood. I said no to both. She also asked me about su-pee-do gohan, which translates (I think) to speed food. I don't know if she was asking me if I ate food while on speed, or how fast I ate my food. I just said yes and waited. 

When they took my blood pressure, they saw that it was pretty high. I can't imagine why... The lady administering told me to relax and it came down by 20 points. I saw about 3 other people who asked me to lift up my shirt about 3 times, and took my blood. I am not a doctor, but I am sure that the lady who took my blood was not qualified because it hurt really bad!

 I snapped this as I was walking away. Bus number 2 is where they did the ECG. I knew this was an EchoCardioGram, but it might as well have been in Japanese. I went in, laid down, and they put suction cups on my chest and heart monitors on. Evidently I passed because they let me go in the end. I also got a chest x-ray. They had me go in the back of the bus and hug this thing that took an x-ray of my chest. The doctor showed me the picture, and it looked good (to me).

Little funny thing I had today. We were talking about whether or not it was good for Junior high students to have cell phones. I caught this little tidbit that one of the students wrote. "it is emergency for us to noise." I think the student was just putting out all of the English words they knew, because the other two were really coherent.