W hen I was offered a job in Japan, I immediately began preparing: dividing my possessions into "stuff to store" and "stuff to take," renewing my passport, shopping for business-wear, and brushing up on my Japanese.

Enthusiastic and in perfect health, I underwent the mandatory pre-employment physical, confident that that was the last time I'd have to visit a doctor for awhile. I certainly didn't expect that a mere three weeks after arriving in Japan, I would be lying in a hospital where no one spoke my native language, wondering what had gone so terribly wrong...

It started out innocently enough: soon after starting my new job, I came down with what I thought was a bad cold, and my supervisor kindly took me to the hospital. The first hurdle was filling out a formidable stack of forms about my medical history in Japanese. Although I was conversationally fluent in Japanese, my reading skills were rusty and my medical vocabulary was practically nonexistant.

The benches in the waiting room were packed with rows of tiny elderly people, who looked on curiously at the sight of an earnest middle-aged Japanese man (my supervisor) trying to ask a young Canadian woman (me) about the regularity of her menstrual cycle, relying almost entirely on elaborate gestures. I'm sure I was the most entertainment some of them had had in a long time.

After the paperwork came the initial assessment, in which a doctor tried to figure out which lucky department's problem I should become. My head felt like it weighed about fifty pounds, it was painful to swallow, and my ears were somewhat blocked, so we ended up in the Ear/Nose/Throat department. The ENT doc took one look in my mouth and proclaimed that my tonsils were swollen; when he handed me the mirror to let me have a look for myself, I was shocked at the sight of two huge pink lumps protruding from both sides of my throat, leaving just a tiny space to swallow.

"Well, that explains the sore throat," I thought. He took a blood sample, then prescribed penicillin in the form of an IV drip. In Canada, IV drips are associated with major surgery, so I was a little apprehensive. In Japan, however, IVs are far more common, and many of my Japanese friends told me that it was normal to be given an IV to treat a cold. After the IV, he gave me a prescription for antibiotics and sent me home, telling me to come back in a few days. "That wasn't so bad," I thought, relieved to be done with all the waiting around and trying to break through language barriers. Little did I know that my adventure was just beginning...

An hour after I returned home, the phone rang. "We have the results of your blood test," said the doctor.

"Yes?"

"It's not tonsilitis."

"Really?" I was too confused to say anything else.

"Actually, it's your kanzou."

"What does 'kanzou' mean?"

There was a long pause, presumably as he consulted a dictionary, then:

"Liver. Virus. Liver virus. You need to be hospitalized."

"Uh, OK," I stammered, wondering what to do next. Were they going to send an ambulance for me? Should I call my supervisor? How does one go about getting hospitalized in Japan, anyway? But the doctor had already hung up.

Shaken, I called my supervisor and explained the situation as best I could with my limited Japanese (although now I had the words for "tonsilitis" and "liver" in my vocabulary!). He brought me back to the hospital, helped me fill out yet another small forest's worth of paperwork (thankfully, less gestures were needed this time), and then returned to the office, leaving me in the hands of the nurses, who seemed excited (if a little nervous) at the prospect of their very first Canadian patient.

An ultrasound revealed that both my spleen and liver were swollen. The doctor said it was probably mononucleosis, and left me in bed to await further tests. Shortly after, a young intern came in and gave me a routine check-up. For a doctor, he was quite shy: rather than put the stethoscope directly against my skin, he placed it over my t-shirt; I found myself wondering if he could really hear anything like that.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Tired."

"Is your neck stiff at all?"

"A little," I admitted, "why?"

"You might have meningitis," he said, feeling my neck.

"Excuse me??" I didn't know much about meningitis, except that it was much more serious than mono.

"If you have meningitis, we'll probably have to do a spinal tap..." he continued apologetically.

Of course, I didn't know the word "spinal tap" in Japanese, so he sketched a diagram of a spinal cord, drew an arrow pointing to the inside of the spine, and wrote the word "fluid" (actually, he spelled it "fruid," but I knew what he meant). After he left, I lay worrying in bed for an hour or so, until he rushed back in, gave me the deepest bow I'd ever received, and apologized profusely for scaring me. Apparently his supervisors had neglected to tell him that they'd already concluded I had mono, and had chastised him for telling me it might be meningitis. His sincere apology touched me, and I began to feel that despite the language and cultural differences, I was going to be well looked after.

I was glad not to have to undergo a spinal tap, but unfortunately, the penicilin IV drip that the ENT doctor had given me initially for my nonexistant tonsilitis made me break out in an extremely itchy full-body rash. The doctors didn't want to stress out my liver by giving me something to stop the itch, so I lay awake for two nights, holding ice packs to various parts of my body in a futile attempt to numb the skin. I will never be bothered by a single mosquito bite again.Since some of the doctors could write a little English but none of them could speak it, I learned lots of new words during my stay: mononucleosis, liver, spleen, IV, blood test, ultrasound, rash, swell up, go down (i.e. a rash), bed rest, tonsils, injection (i.e. a shot), appetite (or lack thereof), nausea, bowel movement, boredom, pain, pain relief, be discharged (from hospital).

Besides honing my language skills, I also got to experience the culture of a Japanese hospital. For example, patients are expected to bring their own chopsticks, cutlery, and cups, and some people also brought small wastepaper baskets. The meal cart played tinned music that sounded like it came from an ice cream truck, so whenever I heard "Mary Had a Little Lamb," I knew it was mealtime. After they were finished eating, patients who were healthy enough to walk would return their trays to a cart stationed in the hallway. I haven't been hospitalized in Canada, but I can't imagine patients returning their trays after mealtime, as if they were at a cafeteria rather than a hospital!

Although the other patients complained about the blandness of the food, the meals were well-balanced and customized according to the patient's needs. For example, I was served foods that were considered good for the liver (black foods are best, apparently), and forbidden from eating such liver-unfriendly foods as chocolate (I argued that dark chocolate was black and thus good for my liver, but to no avail). My only complaint was that the rice served with each meal was bland and too sticky; I eventually just stopped even trying to eat it.

The doctors were convinced that this was because I was not Japanese and therefore would prefer bread (a common Japanese assumption about Westerners). Rather than telling them that I loved rice but their hospital's rice was inedible, I agreed and they substituted bread for rice in my meals from then on. Although they'd warned me that the bread was "not delicious," I was pleasantly surprised: it was actually so tasty that I've been keeping an eye out for it ever since, but it doesn't seem to be sold anywhere else.

After the initial adjustment, my stay was uneventful: breakfast and blood tests in the morning, tedium until lunch, and then more tedium until dinner.

Luckily I had lots of visitors and books to keep me entertained, and I also enjoyed chatting with staff and fellow patients alike. I was discharged after two weeks with orders to take another week off work, and not to drink alcohol or do anything that might rupture my still-enlarged spleen.

It took awhile for me to get my energy back, but soon enough I was able to indulge in chocolate and alcohol again, and my spleen finally decided to return to its normal size and give up any ideas it may have had about rupturing. The whole experience cost me about 100,000 yen (about $1000 USD), but I was able to claim most of it back through my insurance plan.

Hopefully you won't find yourself in a Japanese hospital anytime soon, but if you do: take an electronic dictionary, don't forget your chopsticks, and be sure to tell them that you can't eat rice. Trust me.