903. Reading from my Japanese hospital diaries 📘 (Sept 2002)

Hello listeners welcome back to Luke's English podcast how are you doing today hope you're doing fine so this is a podcast for Learners of English hosted by me I'm Luke I'm an English teacher from England and I've been doing this for ages now I mean this podcast but also teaching English welcome to my podcast most of you are familiar with it already but just in case you are not um yeah this is a podcast for Learners of English and in my episodes I like to do different things sometimes I'll teach you vocab grammar pronunciation especially

in premium episodes sometimes I'll tell you stories sometimes I have conversations with guests and other times I will just talk and talk about pretty much anything you know I'll just ramble on about life the universe and everything and so here we are this should be episode number 93 and as you can see from the title I Have decided to publish this episode which I did mention at the end of the last episode of this podcast so I said at the end of episode 92 which was the last one that I wasn't sure about publishing this

episode which I think is going to be entitled something like reading from my Japanese Hospital diary that's probably going to be the title um I wasn't sure about publishing it but in the end I have decided to publish this as you can see but my main reason for Not being sure about this was that I I have actually told this story before several times on this podcast in episodes 118 and 771 and so I was a bit reluctant to repeat myself this will probably be the last time I tell this story on the podcast unless

it comes up in a conversation sometime or something like that uh but yeah this one's going to be called reading from my Japanese Hospital Diary and I thought that this might be a bit different to those other episodes in which I talked about being sick in Japan because I'm I'm actually reading directly from diaries that I wrote while I was in hospital and I thought that this would probably include other details and I I I thought this would probably include other details that weren't in those episodes like more anecdotes and perhaps some just interesting stuff

that I'd forgotten About and it does have a lot of those things but also it is still largely a retelling of a story that some of you might have heard at least twice before so that's why I had my reservations about publishing it but anyway um but there were enough comments from listeners um telling me that I should publish this because people wanted to hear it anyway and and so I've decided to do it I mean after all I I do need content don't I on this podcast Publishing new episodes every week does mean that

I do need things to publish and it would be a shame to let this go to waste considering I took the time to sit down and record this at the beginning of last month another reason I had my doubts about publishing this is because well I'm wondering if it isn't all a bit too self-indulgent or something here I am talking about this in quite a quite a long episode but in the grand scheme of things it's not that Important really is it to spend over 2 hours dwelling on this weird past experience that I had

so many years ago but somehow it seems like an important moment for me personally in my life and after all this podcast has always been a personal thing and a way to share these kinds of experiences it feels like an important moment for me personally but I still can't quite put my finger on why I mean I think it was a time in my life when I Broke down actually physically at least but also mentally in a way and those two weeks or is it more like 10 days I'm not sure but that time really

marks a sort of break from the otherwise normal continuous flow of my life it's like my life was put on hold for a while and I had this weird experience and then it started up again and so I can't help looking back on this experience as a sort of threshold or line that I crossed at some point I don't know I shouldn't Overthink it of course let's just say it was just a weird moment and it seems like it could be interesting to read what I was thinking while it happened so now that I've really

sold it to you I don't think I have but now that I've really sold the idea to you let's get started so this is what you're going to see now is what I recorded a few weeks ago um at the beginning of September when I'd recently come back from 3 weeks of holiday and I still had a suntan Which I think is completely gone now after weeks of rainy gray weather uh here in in Paris where I live so you're going to see what I recorded a few weeks ago on something like the 23rd anniversary

of the time when I had a really weird and quite scary experience while living quite far from home in a different part of the world I just want to say a shout out to all my Japanese listeners by the way hello Japanese listeners I do want to make it clear That I have a tremendous amount of affection for your country I love Japan and I think about my time there very positively and warmly overall despite the sort of trouble that I had in this particular experience also I want to give a shout out to anyone

who's ever fallen ill in a foreign country many miles from home unable to speak the local language and feeling very lost and frightened if you've ever been in that situation then you will know how I felt When it happened to me so anyway let's rewind a few weeks to the beginning of September when I recorded this so now let the self-indulgent rambling continue now in this episode what I'd like to do is actually read out some pages from a couple of old Diaries which I rediscovered recently and these are diaries from the time when I

was stuck in a Japanese Hospital uh for 2 weeks a long time ago what feel is it a long time ago so um I was in that hospital in Japan um for for about two weeks in September 2002 and I'm recording this in September 2024 so it's almost exactly 22 years ago and uh yeah so that's what I'm going to do now a lot of listeners long-term listeners you'll be familiar with this story you've heard me talk about this experience of being sick in Japan I've told the story a few times maybe I don't know

two or three times on this podcast before several Episodes uh one where I was just in my room describing the story another one when I told the story in front of an audience at the British Council and made a podcast episode about it and uh so here we go again and for some reason I I just can't seem to uh stop telling this story but the reason I'm doing it again is because yeah I kind of rediscovered these Diaries so I took Diaries I wrote a diary uh while I was in the hospital Describing what

was going on each day and how I felt and what I was thinking and it's pretty much every single day of my stay there is recorded I think I lost track of the days um and I'm not sure I wrote I think it's every day maybe not I'm not sure but anyway what I thought I'd do is actually read through the diary and share it with you now I'm not completely sure how this episode will will will go if I'm honest with you um I I don't know maybe this is going to be very interesting

maybe it won't be I I have no idea really but I thought that I would just at least record it and see and see how it goes and maybe I'll never publish this maybe if I decide that it's just not really that interesting I won't publish it but obviously if you are listening to this it means that I have decided to publish it but um anyway we'll see we'll see um there's what are some things I wanted to say um about This so yeah I've told this story lots of times before um yeah I found

these Diaries the other day I thought it could be interesting to revisit what happened and read what I actually wrote at the time um so I ended up in a hospital in Japan uh you you'll get the details of why and how and stuff um and I spent two weeks there but in the end Lu it wasn't serious it wasn't too serious but I didn't know that at the time um and when I first went into the Hospital I didn't know what was wrong with me I felt absolutely terrible and I didn't really understand what

the problem was I didn't really know what was going on around me um the in the hospital I was pretty much the only well almost the only non-japanese person in the hospital um at that time you know people didn't really speak English people just didn't really speak English in the hospital and my Japanese wasn't very good um so I was Really kind of lost and had no idea what was going on certainly the first couple of days and as well as feeling physically terrible I was completely exhausted my whole body was aching my head was

pounding I couldn't eat because it was far too painful in my throat so as well as feeling so terrible I also had like issues which you don't want to know about as well as all those things uh as well as feeling completely horrible I Was frankly terrified as well you'll get the details about why so on the on the first night in the hospital I remember just lying in the bed trying my best not to panic I was having really bad panic attacks because obviously I wasn't in a physically in a very good State and

it's it can can be hard to relax when you are unwell you know it can be it can be hard to kind of feel comfortable and to relax um and as I said I was also very Scared so I kept having these horrible panic attacks I was very stressed out um I thought that I might be seriously ill or something I thought that they were going to operate on me this is what I was thinking that they were going to give me an operation so I was panicking you know and having sort of horrible panic

attacks couldn't relax I knew I just needed to rest and just out of a sense of survival Um I had to try to calm myself down and not panic and find ways to keep my mind occupied and then I ended up spending quite a lot of time in this hospital and yeah I found that I had to write I had to write a diary and I managed to buy uh notepads from The Little Shop they had in the hospital and I quickly began scribbling down a lot of the things that were going on and that

I was thinking about as I said before in the end it wasn't that bad um and I'm very thankful That I wasn't too ill and it does make me think of people who are seriously ill and in hospital and what that must be like um I was actually quite lucky because after about a day I found out what it actually was what was wrong with me and I realized it wasn't as serious as I had uh sort of uh worried and then it was really just a case of getting plenty of rest and then you

know that's what I did and then I just had this very strange experience of being almost the Only non-japanese person in this massive Hospital on the other side of the world it turned into a very strange two weeks and a period that I often think about um I mean it actually thinking about it it was a sort of breakdown and Recovery I suppose anyway what happened what was I thinking about at the time well let's read the read the diary and find out as I said before this might I I hope this is going to

be interesting and not just too Self-indulgent um now one thing often when I do my episodes I make the text available if I write everything in advance if I write notes or scripts in advance I make that text available um either on the screen if you're watching the video version or on the website uh in this case for this episode there isn't really time for me to write out everything from these Diaries there isn't really time for me to transcribe it all and write it all out And then give you a PDF of it also

these are you know just my diary so I don't necessarily want to make them freely available even though I'm going to read them out anyway there is let's just say there isn't really time for me to uh type these out I also don't really want to um take photographs of every single page and put them up so in this case there won't really there won't be text on the screen you're not going to be able to read the words that I'm uh actually saying in this episode uh so you'll just have to focus on the

spoken word without relying on the written word this time I think this is this is actually very good for your listening because if you think about it when you listen um in normal life you don't get the text you don't get a transcript of what you're listening to so I encourage you just simply to focus on the words that you're hearing and just get hopefully get absorbed in the Things I'm saying and just try to follow what you are listening to this is a listening exercise let's say I will explain bits and pieces of English

that come up uh during the episode uh essentially we will be learning English from the uh from me 22 years ago uh and you know when I'm when I was writing this diary that I was just completely being myself and so certain bits of like vocabulary came up that kind of could be Interesting for you to to learn so I'll explain some bits of vocab um when this happened yeah I I was in my mid 20s at the time uh my mid 20s I'd been to University I'd lived away from home already for a few

years um but nevertheless I still think from this perspective now I think I wasn't very mature really I mean I was fairly mature in my mind I think but in terms of the practicalities of life like being able To look after yourself and being able to you know just cook and do all those things I think I wasn't very grown up still and that's maybe one of the reasons why I ended up in this state that I wasn't really looking after myself very well now I think it's probably time for me to just start reading

from the Diaries and we'll and we'll see where we go um I'm not going to read out every single thing I've written in here because some of this is Just too personal for me to share so I will be let's say skipping over certain things and maybe redacting certain details um but I'll read most of it to you I think all right so if you're sitting comfortably or standing comfortably or whatever uh let's begin so this is my Hospital diary and the two of them um first one uh was written on this lovely sort of

turquoise pale pale blue greenish colored pad that I bought in the hospital Um shop and it starts like this Luke's Japanese Hospital diary starting from the back so I actually decided that I would write from the back to the front um just for the hell of it and also out of respect for my host nation Japan I suppose that's kind of how I was feeling normally I would have just you know normally in the in where I'm from you page one is the you know you you get the idea so I decided I'd write Back

to front so day one well what the hell am I doing here I'm in a hospital in Japan how did this happen well I don't know I don't know means I don't know I don't know and I can't be asked to think about it now if you can't be asked to do something that's asked a r s e d can't be asked means you can't be bothered you just feel like you don't have enough energy or you're too lazy so how did this happen how did I end up in this place well I can't really

be I Can't be asked to think about it now it's an informal expression it's a little bit rude just means I can't be bothered to think about it I've just been filled with strange pink liquid and I'm feeling a little sleepy so I think I'll tackle the whole why am I here problem a bit later still it's highly strange so I'd been filled with a strange pink liquid that was I don't really know what it was someone in the comment section of one of My old episodes did explain to me what that was when I

described it before but they in the hospital part of the treatment is that they would hook me up to this IV drip um at regular intervals I'd get a couple of these every day and the pink one was a kind of see-through pink liquid right a big big bag of it I don't know how much it was but it was quite large and it would take a few hours for it all to go into me so I had a little little thing Attached to the one of the veins on my left hand it was it

was like a little metal Spike that went into the vein on my left hand I think it was on the vein on my hand and that's where they would attach the drip and then there would be this kind of like metal um sort of metal stand with wheels on it and then a hook at the top and then this plastic sack with this mysterious seethrough pink liquid hanging from it and then a little tube coming down which Would be attached to this thing on my hand and they'd open up the thing on my hand the

catheter right they'd open up that and open up the bag and the stuff would just slowly make its way into my into my blood into my body so um yeah so I've just been filled with this strange pink liquid and I'm feeling a little sleepy so I think I'll tackle the whole why am I here problem a bit later if you tackle a problem it just means you deal with it a bit like in football If you tackle someone you try and get the ball from them you can also tackle a problem meaning deal with

it okay it's a bit later about 2 p.m. and I still feel drowsy meaning sleepy but I don't want to sleep now I'd rather leave that for later also I want to stay awake because I'll have to go downstairs to get a call from Mom and Dad on my mobile which has to stay Switched Off up here so bear in mind everyone that this happened in 2002 which is before the days of uh like Smartphones and I mean we had the internet but the internet was not quite as pervasive meaning everywhere as it is today

and I had a little flip phone a little J phone which allowed me to make phone calls and send SMS text messages but I wasn't on the internet I didn't have any of the things that we have today I didn't have access to the internet I wasn't on YouTube no social media none of that stuff that would these days probably have kept me Distracted and kept me entertained I had none of that so it's was just me in a in a bed with kind of nothing I did get some books I did get some mini

discs and a mini dis player so I could listen to music but a lot of the time I was just sitting there um completely bored just with my own thoughts um so I said I had to go downstairs to get a phone call from my mom and dad on my Mobile um so I'll continue I must say this hospital is very relaxing there isn't really anything for me to do except sleep and daydream which is a nice change from my usual Saturday spent in Nova rushing around without a moment to to plan each lesson so

I used to work in Japan I used to work for this company called Nova which was a language school I think they don't exist anymore I think they went bankrupt so Nova was a very well-known Language School um as a brand It was as well known as probably McDonald's or something like that and you know you would see Nova language schools English schools just everywhere in Japan all the major CI all the major stations had a Nova next to them um and um not the best reputation it was kind of like you know what McDonald's

did for food Nova did for learning English something like that but there were lots of jobs for at Nova a lot of uh people uh like me would go and work at Nova was Easy to get a job there pretty much I mean you know they had they had they had standards you know they they had high standards anyway so working at Nova was quite um quite hard work you would have to work very hard teaching fairly long days very intensive teaching all the way through the day uh I've talked about it before the the

the routine of of um coming into work not knowing exactly what your teaching program would be uh For that day looking at the program which would be put on the board maybe just half an hour before the day starts um and you'd have a look you wouldn't really have much time to prepare your lessons you'd be rushing into the classroom teaching maybe 50 minutes with a small group of Japanese people uh often quite unprepared um and then when the lesson finished you'd have 10 minutes to do the quick lesson report giving notes for Each student

put the files back find the the the the names of the students in your next class which which was going to start within just a few minutes grab their files work out which lessons they needed to do um find the relevant course books have a look at the pages quickly prepare something in like a minute or two and then rush into the classroom and start the next lesson and you'd have about nine lessons like that back to back with a lunch break and often one of Those at least one of those lessons would be a

kids class where you'd Rush downstairs and suddenly you you you you're teaching like eight little kids so very intensive teaching great kind of training for me but the you know the the work was quite intensive so anyway um it was a nice change sitting in this hospital bed um on this Saturday when normally I would be rushing around without a moment to plan each Lesson um so the diary continues I still can't escape that feeling of I'm sick it's a little dark Cloud hanging over me my body isn't working properly and it's become dangerous so

I've been put in this place to get special treatment I'd I never expected this it's quite an experience I arrived yesterday after what is already a long story which I'll cut short here so this is a kind of like quick summary of The Story So the summer was too hot and too humid I was also Very busy and I exhausted myself I think my girlfriend so that a Japanese girlfriend I had at the time she was Japanese her dad was like half American her family were lovely not that I really met them very much in

fact I met her dad because I was sick and that was embarrassing I have to say I'll probably get to that in a bit um but I met her mom once or twice lovely family lovely girl and uh but when I got sick they were all Out of the country um and so like the only people who perhaps I could have asked for help weren't there um there was the company there was the school I worked for but for me I didn't feel like they were uh someone I could turn to because really I would

just call them to tell them I was sick so I didn't have to work and then on a personal level um it was probably my girlfriend who was The one who who who would perhaps be the Japanese person that I would I would look to to for help I had another couple of Japanese friends as well but anyway so um my girlfriend went on holiday to the UK ironically enough and I came down with a strange fever I had to work on I had to work an 8 day week that's working eight days consecutively without

a day off and for most of that time I was feeling under the weather so if you feel under the weather it just means you feel Kind of sick my nightmare kids class so that's a kids class that I had to teach that was a total nightmare and they used to completely exhaust me and I couldn't control them and it it was just I used to dread going into that class my nightmare kids class also took its toll if something takes its toll it means it's sort of like um um you you kind of have

to pay for it it it takes something from you uh it um it Takes your energy away or it somehow yeah takes something from you a toll is normally a payment that you have to make to use a certain road so to travel down this road you have to pay a toll so if something takes its toll on you we Ed the preposition on take its toll on you it means basically that it takes something from you normally it makes you tired so the K my nightmare kids class also took its toll I got to

my three-day weekend so that's after eight days of Feeling terrible because I was sick with something and you know the teaching in this way for eight days straight and it was still very hot and humid this is kind of near the end of a Japanese summer and summers in Japan in in the area where I was living canaga prefecture not far from Tokyo the temperature gets very hot and it's very humid um so I got to my 3-day weekend and spent it lying in bed recovering from Flu uh SL fever so I thought that I

had influenza that was the those are the symptoms I had I was just very tired I remember my back aching so much I didn't have the energy to do anything I could only lie down in bed and my back had this kind of really horrible deep aching feeling in it especially up at the top and across my shoulders like deep sort of aching tiredness it was horrible um I also took a day off sick the previous week I guess that's before the 8-day Week that's why I had to work an 8 day week and by

Wednesday that was my third day of weekend third day of lying down in bed trying to rest by the third day off I was feeling a bit bit better and I decided I decided I would go out that it would be a good idea for me to get out of the apartment and maybe go for a walk or something and I went out to Kamakura which was a place near where I used to live that had lots of nice places to go Walking with interesting old uh Japanese temples so I went out for a walk

in Kamakura and coincidentally enough while I was walking around one of those temples I happened to bump into to Dave Gro from the Foo Fighters and Nana you know the drummer from Nana Dave Gro of the Foo Fighters I just I happened to meet him um by coincidence which was kind of an extraordinary moment for me and uh yeah I was just leaving one of these Temples and I saw a group of um uh like foreign people when I say foreign people I mean non-japanese people which is at that time was still quite rare you

didn't see that many foreign people U even in a touristy place like that and so when you when I saw foreigners I'd sometimes just kind of like even sometimes you'd say hello or you just at least have a look at them um to kind of maybe guess where they come from or something and I remember walking past This group and there was the person at the front of the group I kind of took a look at him and I thought H funny I know him I'm sure I know him and I kept walking because I

was trying to keep myself to myself I kept walking and then after a few steps I realized oh my God that's Dave Gro and uh I was a big fan I mean I still am but certainly just like maybe the year before I'd spent kind of a year on my own my living at my parents in the Countryside I say living on my own I was living with my parents but it was a very quiet year kind of year of a lot of solitude of of kind of uh working in a working in a job

I wasn't really enjoying and spending a lot of time on my own uh all my other friends had all you know were all living in different places after having been at University and I ended up sort of on my own and spent a lot of time driving around in my dad's car and I had this tape which was This Foo Fighters album uh there's nothing left to lose and I would just for some reason this particular album was the album I listened to all the time in the car and it made me feel comfortable you

know one of those comfortable albums that you listen to that kind of makes you feel better it was one of those periods so and then so then now there I was in Japan and then working as an English teacher my first English teaching job and then yeah this Weird day when I went for a walk and suddenly there's Dave Gro it was just so weird and I talked to him and stuff um I went back to work on the Thursday and the Friday and Saturday and Sunday by Saturday by the Saturday I could feel the

illness coming back on Sunday I knew it was tonsilitis so tonsillitis is an infection of glands in your throat and the the the glands the tonsils at the back of your throat they get swollen and when it gets bad they get really Infected and you can actually see the bacterial infection on the tonsils they kind of change color they they swell up and they become incredibly painful now I thought it was maybe just tonsilitis but it was not I didn't only have tonsilitis so on Sunday I knew it was tonsilitis I could feel the pain

in my throat I looked at them in the mirror I could see that they were swollen um um my girlfriend I think came back from her holiday with her family around This time and on the Sunday Sunday night I managed to arrange with her to see a doctor the next day which was my day off um and I I absolutely had to see a doctor because it felt terrible and I was already now I've written in this diary I was [ __ ] myself um and that's obviously a rude expression that just means I was

really scared I felt so bad and I was really scared now tonsilitis is you know it's not that bad but if you leave it and it doesn't get Treated then it can lead to more serious things it first of all it can get so bad the infection in your tonsils can get so bad that they that it can lead to what's called abscesses the these are hu like holes in your in this case it would be holes in my throat that were deeply infected and that would be very very very painful and then any infection

in your body if you don't get it if you don't deal with it then the infection can move to different parts of the body And ultimately the infection could move into your blood and if your blood gets infected that's called sepsis and that is life-threatening so I mean you know that's that's what would happen eventually but luckily I was living in a place where there were doctors and medicine and stuff like that but I I still felt you know very alienated as someone as a foreigner in This country I'd only been there for a few

months really at this time maybe six or seven months uh seven or eight months no nine months anyway I I I arrived in January of that year so I hadn't even been there for a year and I still felt very alienated and kind of helpless uh not I didn't I had no idea how to arrange a doctor's appointment um nothing like that and remember there's no internet really there wasn't I didn't have a Computer at home so I couldn't just like log on to the internet and just Google it that was not an option um

so I had you know I had to rely on other people and so anyway I had to get my girlfriend to help me arrange a doctor's appointment so and that was for the next day the Monday and I had to because it felt terrible and already I was [ __ ] myself uh Monday was a national holiday which means everything is closed so my Girlfriend's mom and dad had to take me to an emergency clinic the whole experience was totally upsetting and the start of one of my worst weeks so I remember I I looked

like a zombie I felt terrible um I looked awful and this was the first time I met my girlfriend's dad and um I just felt so ashamed and embarrassed and I felt like he must have thought who the hell is this guy uh I mean I've got to say a big thank you to my girlfriend and her family I don't Know if they're watching I mean you know we um we didn't it wasn't like that serious we weren't even in that much of a serious relationship we'd only been seeing each other for a couple of

months maybe um and then suddenly like that you know her and her family are having to look after me so I have to say a big thanks to them so much I don't I doubt that they're listening to this but in any case just I don't know if I ever showed my gratitude really I don't know If I I don't remember I must have done I must have said a big thank you maybe I bought flowers I don't remember but um still I I would really like to show my gratitude for them to them because

they really helped me so the whole experience was totally upsetting start of one of my worst weeks I was very frightened because I'd never been ill seriously in Japan before and I was in a lot of pain and everyone around me was speaking another language so I was I I Really didn't know what was happening luckily my girlfriend's mom and dad uh speak good English and helped me uh the doctor was very scary I sat in an upright examining chair and the whole vibe was very old-fashioned yeah remember this sitting in this upright chair with

like a neck brace and or my neck was like in this kind of brace thing which holds your neck and head in position very uncomfortable upright chair um I sat in the chair and to my Left there was like a kind of a a table or a cabinet on my left and in the cabinet were all his tools which really scared me I could see all these different knives and uh instruments and all these different tools all all were just there right next to me and I could see them and that really scared me you

know just looking at all those knives and blades and things and scalples and there was a big light in my Face and the nurse was wandering around behind me I felt like there was no real effort to make the patient feel relaxed in my experience in England in those situ situations normally there's there's a sort of bedside manner which is like a kind of uh some level of effort to try and make the patient feel a bit more bit comfortable and relaxed in this particular doctor's surgery I didn't get that at all and my overall

feeling not understanding what they were Talking about my overall feeling was very unfriendly uh um atmosphere no effort to make me feel relaxed or comfortable um he put antiseptic on a swab so that's a swab was like a kind of first of all a long metal kind of long metal uh Rod like a long metal stick and on the end of it was like a soft um uh piece of piece of fabric which he dipped into some antiseptic antiseptic Is stuff that you would put on like an injury or a cut to try and kill

uh bacteria so he got this long metal um rod with this swab on the end he dipped it into this antiseptic and he poked it right into my throat and directly cleaned he cleaned my tonsils now bear in mind at the time my tonsils were hugely swollen incredibly sensitive and not just covered in Gray bacteria but it got so bad that I remember looking in The mirror and it was the bacteria was gray green color all over my tonsils and they were starting to go black as well it was the worst tonsilitis I'd ever had

and I've had tonsilitis quite a lot of times in my life and it was so bad that the the the tonsils was even starting to go black and then and so his his solution was just to just directly clean them rub them with this antiseptic it was very painful he also Sprayed them a fair amount like he sprayed them with antiseptics and and that caused me even more pain uh at one moment I remember I coughed I I involuntarily coughed this stuff back into his face it was horrible so he's there with this thing like

rubbing my tonsils and spraying them and I kind of went you know I couldn't help it and it cuffed all back into his face I felt so terrible you know I it was awful cuz you know what you want to be able to do is Say oh God I'm so sorry but I just was unable to do that and at this point I was holding back tears so I was actually trying not to cry I felt so awful in in every way I felt physically awful also socially just felt so ashamed as well so I

left the emergency Ward or the the emergency clinic with four pills of antibiotics and the night before I had been praying for antibiotics he gave me four pills which as far as I could tell was about a day Worth now I'd had ant I'd had tonso litis quite a lot of times before this particular moment to be honest I should have had them removed but I never I never got that done I should have had them removed but in my late teen and early 20s I got tonsilitis quite a lot of times and I was

always given a course of antibiotics that would last maybe 5 days and that would stop the tonsilitis and they'd go back to normal and I'd just carry on Feel better this so I knew how much antibiotics I needed and it was always the same whenever I had I had tonsilitis I would take uh antibiotics for a couple of days and it wouldn't make any difference for maybe two days and it was n until the third day that it would kick in and I would definitely feel that the infection was going and then by five you

know 5 days later I'd feel completely better again uh this guy gave me four Pills which uh was supposed to be like a day or two of of antibiotics and they weren't big pills either uh so he gave me some antibiotics and some mouthwash my girlfriend's parents were Mega helpful I got the train back from Zushi that was the place where I went to the doctors that's also the place I used to work spent Monday feeling terrible the antibiotics didn't do anything I remember I because my my throat was so horribly Infected um and so

painful I couldn't eat I couldn't really eat anything I tried to eat some mouthfuls of banana and I tried to drink miso soup but that's pretty much it it was just too painful to eat even just drinking water and staying hydrated was horribly painful on Tuesday I went back to that doctor at his own surgery with my girlfriend this time so he could examine me again and give me more antibiotics I was feeling super crap Like feeling really bad uh I got back on Tuesday and couldn't eat because of pain the doctor gave me painkillers

that didn't kill pain and antibiotics that didn't do whatever they're supposed to do very up upsetting spent 2 days feeling really miserable at this point I was just really miserable and just really wanted just to be home I just wanted to be out of this shitty little room where I was Living um just the outside world at that point where I was just seemed so foreign to me and so uninviting I just really wanted to be home but I was miles away I was like a 12-hour plane Journey which you know it's like a ,000

um ticket which the money I didn't have uh I felt very far from home and all I wanted to do was just to be home uh so I spent two days feeling really miserable a Thursday I met my girlfriend's mom and We decided to go to a different doctor okay so this is the third attempt really to get this dealt with this new doctor turned out to be one of my students so I went to this doctor in this town called Zushi and went into the doctor's surgery waited and stuff went in and surprise surprise

it's one of my students and I had a lot of students who lived in that town who would go and have English lessons you know for example maybe with me on a Saturday morning or Something and so he he was one of my students which was um pretty good because he was more friendly and we could communicate better the other doctor I mentioned was really unfriendly and seemed like a kind of I don't know if I don't know if he was cruel and mean but I felt like that I felt like he he never really

looked at me like a person I was just a thing in front of him whereas this other doctor was way More friendly and already knew me as his teacher and I felt like we could communicate better although having said that he was A2 level so that means he was kind of Elementary pre-intermediate level in English so his English was quite basic but still just the fact that I knew him and he was nice a nice guy made a huge difference he diagnosed me with acute tonsilitis acute tonsilitis that means very like like Advanced tonsilitus Which

makes it sound good like C1 level tons solitis but like basically very bad tonsilitis your tonsils remember those glands at the back of your throat itis often is a suffix that's added meaning uh an infection right umh so in this case tonsilitis an infection of the tonsils um laryngitis for example an infection of the larynx another part of your Throat sorry he he diagnosed me with acute tonsilitis and put me on an antibiotic drip for 30 minutes so I I remember I lay down in a room in his surgery while this little bag of antibiotics

dripped into my arm for about 30 minutes and he gave me good painkillers and better antibiotics he also took a blood test now the doctor had diagnosed me with having tons itis but that wasn't the Only thing I had I think the tonsilitis was maybe a consequence of this other thing that I had um after the drip I felt better and a lot of the pain in my tonsils went and I could actually eat more now the next day was Friday which is yesterday um so the day before I read I wrote this stuff so

this was written on a Saturday day one let's say or maybe day two was a Saturday and so the day before um I went back to see the new Doctor with my girlfriend and he gave me the results of my blood test and this bit was really scary because and this this was where there was a bit of a miscommunication and a bit of a misunderstanding which caused me to be very upset so um he gave me the results of my blood test he said I had liver damage and high a high level of white

blood cells and I had the EB virus I had no idea what the EB virus is and when Writing this I wrote what the hell is that I wrote and that I need an I'd need an operation so I remember distinctly he said here's your liver damage your liver is a really important organ in your body which helps to filter all the blood in your body and it breaks down poisonous substances in your body now because I had this infection um a lot of that infection was in in my blood now my blood wasn't infected

it was my li My you know my Throat that was infected but a lot of the um the result of that infection meant that my blood needed to be cleaned a lot of the white blood cells which are there to try to fight against the infection those white blood cells can actually still be very damaging to your body as well and your liver has to do a lot of the work of um trying to like essentially clean up your blood and so my your liver gets damaged in this in This situation and I had sort

of quite a high level of liver damage which was very worrying because I knew that the liver was a one of the most important organs in the body so he said you've got liver damage you have high a high level of white blood cells he was like here's the normal level and here's your level and it was it seemed to be much higher than it should be and I had the EB virus and I remember at the time thinking what on Earth is the EB virus and I was terrified I thought it was one of

those like horrible sort of tropical diseases or something like that I didn't know and he said you will need to go to a hospital and you will need an operation and at that point you know the all the blood drained from my face and I think I I just inst stly burst out crying or something because I was so exhausted it was like the the culmination of so many Horrible horrible days and feeling so tired and desperate and exhausted and when he told me all those things I I suddenly decide or or assumed that actually

I was really really ill and it you know I don't know you kind of hold on and then when someone tells you that I don't know I just maybe I sort of like um assumed the worst or something I was very upset and again it was a misunderstanding kind of which I'll explain in a bit so this Was the worst news for me I think he may have made it sound more serious than it really is but I will be in hospital for a week turns out I was there for longer for me the liver

damage and the hospital bits were the scariest I expected him to tell me I was getting better and I'd be fine in a couple of weeks but that's not what he said anyway I checked into this Hospital which is okay because I'm being looked after and I'm not all alone in my apartment [ __ ] myself again meaning Feeling really scared and speculating about everything more later so yeah the fact that I was in hospital was a good thing because you know finally I was in a place where I could be looked after right much

better than being on my own in my apartment where I was speculating about everything meaning my imagination was running running Riot you know getting carried away um getting a you know getting Scared and and stuff so it felt good to be in a hospital but still so I arrived yesterday and first I had to see the hospital Doctor Who is a pretty cool dude a young guy with a sense of humor he checked out my tonsils cleaned up my nose Etc also I had an ex-ray no problem and a cardiogram that's kind of like a

that's when they check your part I had a cardiogram which showed that I was having a few irregularities in that department due to stress and nerves so I Mentioned before I was having panic attacks I could feel heart palpitations like an irregular heartbeat so I'm I'm so I'm just staying chilled out I was just trying to chill out and just trying to relax um uh my girlfriend stayed with me last night while I ate my dinner and then left when her parents arrived with my stuff I don't know where they got my stuff from Uh

her dad has even given me a pair of slippers wow they were so nice uh skip past that bit uh after my girlfriend and her parents left the nurse hooked me up to another drip my first in the hospital one bag of antibiotics and one with vitamins and other things to make my throat and tons feel better the drip was weird and slow it lasted about 4 hours it's a kind of horrible feeling having all this fluid dripping right Into your body I can taste it too and it's all in my snot and saliva so

I could I could actually kind of taste it was very weird it was obviously going into my bloodstream but I felt it was all in my body everywhere and I could taste it in my mouth I had this weird taste in my mouth and I could it was in my snot that's like the green stuff that comes out of your nose and in my saliva and even I felt like my fingernails were kind of greasy It's really really weird still I expect it's making me better right um I have to go downstairs now to get

that phone call then back up here for another drip W hey the party never stops so uh my somehow communicated a little bit with my parents and I think uh my girlfriend's mom was also in communication with my parents which is also weird cuz it's like normally you know you don't introduce your your your girlfriend's parents to each other until You get like really serious and we weren't really that serious so it was all a bit kind of a bit much for us so okay I continued I finished the drip I'm full of antibiotics again

I got the phone call from home too everything seems pretty calm arm there so um I had been in touch with my parents while feeling sick and they were trying to you know um comfort me and stuff uh but they didn't know what was up and Uh and but I think that maybe uh my girlfriend's mom had been telling my parents what it was and they my girlfriend's mom was the one who knew what was going on you know I didn't really know what was going on anyway so my it was actually my parents who

told me so I'm I'm I'm I'm continuing to read they told me I've got glandular fever and that I'm actually in the right kind I'm I'm getting the right kind of care this makes me feel a bit better knowing That I've got a common thing or popular virus as one of the doctors said this week uh my student actually I'll have to set him straight on that when I see him next so it turned out I had glandular fever which is also known as mononucleosis yes a very common thing which loads of people especially sort

of people in their teens or early 20s often get it's a common virus which causes exhaustion and it can lead to things like Tonsilitis so that was actually very reassuring because I knew that it wasn't that serious and it was actually very common now to uh mon mononucleosis can be it can you know you can get it badly you can get it less badly some people get mononucleosis and it maybe they just sort of have to rest for a few days and then they carry on fine other people get glandular fever or mononucleosis and it's

a bit more a bit stronger and it Affects them a bit more and for some people they get it and it really knocks them out for quite a long time and it can be weeks of rest that you need and some people it you get the feeling you never really quite recover from it that there's always this lingering feeling of tiredness that stays with you or that you feel the symptoms of it come back every now and then um and that's kind of how it was for me it took me quite a long time to

Recover from this mononucleosis and I felt low energy for quite a long time afterwards even for like a year the following year I would I kind of go up and down and sometimes I would feel it was it had come back and I'd feel that sense of deep tiredness again and even to this day it comes back to me and I get that feeling so after having mononucleosis I used to get migraine headaches um and these headaches would Come and be incredibly incredibly uh powerful headaches which uh would make it very difficult for me to

do things moving around would make my head pound bright light would be really really difficult to look at and still to this day I periodically get these migraines where you know it's just a headache that stays with you for a long time accompanied by that kind of weird sense of tiredness and I remember I used to get like um Aches and pains in the back of my head and it was very disturbing so so going back to the misunderstanding from my doctor he said so the thing about the liver damage was was correct the EB

virus is actually the virus that causes mononucleosis it's called the Epstein bar the Epstein bar virus it's the yeah the cause of of mononucleosis um then you will need to go to a hospital meant that you should go and and you need to go and rest you Need to be given care because you're really not okay you can't stay at home you got to be looked after for a while you need at least a week in hospital that's what that was for rest and then you will need an operation what I was worried about I

was thinking I'm going to need a liver transplant that's what I was thinking that they're going to operate on me they're going to remove my liver which has got this weird damage and this problem and I'm going to be Given a new liver and one of the crazy things that I was worried about was that I'd be given a Japanese liver and I don't know what in when you're in that state you kind of worry you kind of think does it would a Japanese liver work would that would that work for me I me know

it's just human it's the human body and stuff and it's just a liver is a liver but I was kind of worried thinking is is that how's that going to be having a Japanese Liver and then I used to think would that mean that I'd still be able to drink because some Japanese people there's it's every I don't know what the what the ratio is but okay sometimes you go to a bar in Japan and having a few drinks and they always be one Japanese person who'd have one or two drinks and they go all

red in the face and they'd fall over and pass out cuz they lacked a certain enzyme which meant they couldn't Break down the alcohol and they they'd get really badly affected by the alcohol I was thinking oh my God I'm going to get that guy's liver aren't I knowing my luck so all these sorts stup things were flying around my head but what the doctor actually meant was you should have your Li your liver you should have your tonsils removed that's the operation he was talking about is that at some point you should have your

tonsils removed because it seems that You they can be uh infected quite easily um I never did get my tonsils removed and I still got tonsilitis occasionally for years after that these days I don't get it so much anymore but probably should get them removed but you know when you're busy you don't always have time to get all these things done um let's continue the diary is this interesting I hope there's there's more I should fly through this more quickly I Sent an email to Azusa that was a friend of mine I was in a

band with her um I was playing drums auso was the bass player sent an email to Azusa saying I won't be able to make it to ban practice and to tell youu yuk was uh the other guy in the band I hope she does and that they work something out with this new singer who I'm really interested in meeting it turns out looks like we were looking at having a new singer in the band it Should be pretty interesting with two girls and two guys in the band and me and Yus have been hitting it

off well recently hitting it off meaning getting on well sort of having a good relationship recently blah blah blah I've got plenty more to write but dinner is on its way and I can't really write a lot in one go anyway more later now I remember that morning the first morning uh and didn't write this in the diary but I remember this that first Morning I kind of woke up after a bad night where I hadn't slept very well I woke up in the morning morning in this hospital and one of the first things that

happened is that a nurse came to me with um a sort of questionnaire and the questions had been translated into English English and she she read out the English questions but the translation was really bad and they the questions didn't make much sense to me so I tried to answer them as well as I could you Know she asked me about how I'd slept and how I felt and stuff and one of the questions was what were your movements last night what were you or can you describe your movements last night and I thought she

meant like how how much I had moved moved in bed during the night like my body position or something so that's what I thought she was talking about so I was like well and I tried to explain I was like maybe two hours on this side maybe an hour like this maybe A few hours on this side but I turned lots of turning turning in bed and she looked at me and she sort of went ah and wrote something down and later what I realized is what that meant was what were your bowel movements last

night cuz actually when I went to the hospital as well as all the other things I also had diarrhea so bowel movements means uh doing doing poo Okay your bowels are part of let's say part of your Bum and when you when you move your bowels it means um um when poo comes out of your bum okay that's a bow owl movement it's a it's a poo so she wanted to know about the conditions the condition of my poo and how many times I had done a poo last night because I had diarrhea so she

what she thought she was asking me was can you describe your poo last night and my response was well a couple of hours on this side couple of hours on that side and lay on my back For a while she must have thought I was completely mad or something I don't know um so I continue the diary it's about 700 p.m. now and I've finished dinner taking all my medicine I've got tons of stuff to take one antibiotic one little cup of painkiller from a bottle it looks like milk but it tastes of lemon one

pill for my blocked nose a sachet of stuff to stop diarrhea also I have some little throat sweets which Taste of strawberry and a nice to suck and some Mouthwash for gargling so I had like a whole collection of medine on the side of the on the bedside table I've been just communicating with a few words like finished okay call diobu it CH this is weird so diobu is basically like okay right feeling okay or okay it means it hurts CH means a little bit the guy opposite me so I was in a I was

was in a ward a room in the hospital with about probably eight beds in it something like That I was in one bed in the corner of the room next to the window luckily but there were about seven other beds in the room one opposite me one right next to me so the guy opposite me is watching the baseball and I keep sneaking glances at his TV so I keep I kept sort of having a look at his television watching the baseball I've got a TV too but I need a card to get it working

and I can't be asked to get it I can't be asked to get One I should though check out the baseball and stuff I'm a bit bored now which isn't good I think getting that TV card is the right thing for me to do I never actually did get the TV card I've written next I couldn't get a TV card no change I didn't have any money doesn't matter I'll have to find another way to amuse myself I was able to walk around the hospital of bit and I wrote walking around this place there are

some really Ill people about people in wheelchairs very old women really weak lying in a bed people Towing frames that carry bags of their urine and drips so there were people walking around sort of like um with with these Metal Frames and they were dragging the frames Along on little wheels and the frames seemed to carry bags of their urine it's really weird in the toilet there is a rack with loads of really stinky bags of urine hanging from it so You' go into the Toilet and on the side there'd be all these bags of

yellow urine hanging up and it would really it sort of smell really bad I said bad smell but these people are sick I'm really the odd one out here I'm young I'm not too sick and I'm English the place is filled with old Japanese people what am I doing here how did I get to be how did I get to be here doing this it's ridiculous and funny I'm just alone with my thoughts but I'm Keeping myself amused I can't push myself here so I'm just playing dumb games to pass the time I just really

wanted to try and not to challenge myself mentally or physically in any way right I just felt like I was just recovering from this horrible mental condition as well as physical um so I can't push myself here so I'm just playing dumb games to pass the time last night I spent a lot Of time playing the ABC game basically I think of a topic however ordinary or stupid and think of a word Associated it for each letter of the alphabet with some dumbass results for example animals you just go through the entire alphabet thinking of

an animal that begins with a then b a anaconda B bear C crocodile d uh uh duck you know and you just keep doing it you try not to think too much it just keeps your mind occupied so That you don't completely Panic or get really depressed or something like that animals easy movie names places or objects in movies characters in movies food Sports pastimes art forms forms or genres of music musical instruments musical sounds on a Yamaha Keyboard bands songs Beatles songs place names boys names girls names different feelings etc etc etc and I

would just keep playing that in order to make sure that my mind didn't start thinking about Other things and getting sort of scared or upset I always get stuck on K and Q because I can only think of zoo uh sorry I always get stuck on K and Q so I could never think of words beginning with K and words beginning with q especially and because I can only think of zoo and zebra for Zed I have to incorporate these into every category somehow for example Sports you got like zebra racing pastimes Zoo going to

the Art forms Zoo painting musical genres Zimbabwe music sounds General Zoo noise or zebra etc etc you get the picture a nurse has arrived and I know dot dot dot so the a nurse arrived and I I said I know meaning I know she's going to do something and I stopped writing and then after she' gone I continued actually I thought she was going to talk to me in Japanese but she took my temperature 37 . 1° and went away over here they are really conscious about their body temperature and usually know it down to

the decimal point in England we don't give it we don't really give a crap about it I think sometimes we're hot sometimes cold I think that's not entirely true I think in the UK we probably still do pay attention to our temperature and take our temperature especially in especially doctors and nurses but still I think that maybe in Japan they're a bit more uh focused on specific body temperatures anyway I think I should chill out and play the ABC game again this time different smells Zed Zoo smell okay I played the ABC g game I

may have to think of something else I've just I've just about pushed that one to its limit I reckon I just met a funny nurse who asked me what I want to eat next week she gave me options like chicken or fish Etc I know I'll be eating a lot of Chicken and fish and on one day some pork and one day tempura and udon actually looking back on it now it's pretty good you know I got to eat all this pretty nice Japanese food I mean hospital food we know is not the best food

ever is it but this food that I got in this hospital was not too bad and it was all classic japanese dishes uh the guy opposite me is still watching baseball what a boring game just an excuse for waving your ass in The air and looking serious I feel restless and like my heart is nervous I'm bored mainly I don't need stimulation I need release or something best to just slow it all down and just chill out right here in the moment day two okay it's about 2:00 p.m. I slept really well last night but

my mouth was so dry whenever I woke up and my lips are all cracked I've got the air conditioner next to me in my B uh I've got the air conditioner next to my bed And I think it may be drying me out a bit when I close the curtain at night still I like this spot I'm in the corner out of the way I'm not too close to anyone else I've got the window with with a good view no worries from the window I can see a view of the valley stretching away from me

with some Round Hills at the sides in the valley are random buildings typically Japanese I can also see black kites gliding around so this Hospital was in a Place called yosa which is like just down the coast from Tokyo and Yokohama and it's quite a nice part of the World Part of Japan really not not far from the from the seaside and you got these Hills that sort of go down towards the the coast and I said I can see black kites gliding around black kites are these birds of prey like kind of like Hawks

that would Glide around uh looking for looking for things to Eat I spent most of the day lying around listening to the orb and the Beatles the orb so this is the album by the group called the orb the sort of ambient techno uh group called the orb the album was Adventures beyond the ultra world this is their best album but UF orb is pretty good because of the tunes blue room and towers of dub I think Sergeant Peppa is my favorite Beatles album it seems to be somehow warm and snug and a bit removed

from their other Stuff I had a bit of excitement with my drip today so remember I was still getting this uh intravenous drip um going into my into a vein in my hand connected to these bags of mysterious fluid hanging from a metal um sort of frame that was next to my bed so um I had an excitement with a bit of excitement with the drip um the drip was nearly finished and I really needed the toilet and then my lunch came I decided to try and walk With the drip to the toilet because obviously

I wanted to be able to eat my lunch without feeling like I really needed the toilet so I decided right I'll go to the toilet now even though the drip isn't finished I'll I'll go and I'll take the drip with me on the on its metal frame so I decided to try and walk with the drip to the toilet it's on Wheels so I thought it would be okay I got to the toilet and noticed the tube so the tube coming out of my hand going Into the bag I noticed the tube up to the

drip was all red and filled with my blood so for some reason it had started going the other way my blood had started going out into the tube and was heading to the bag so I was losing blood into the drip um so I slowly went back to the bed and had to lie down again the drip started dripping again and the blood went back into my arm I just had to wait about 15 minutes before the drip Finished and the nurse came to remove it then I went to the toilet relieved myself washed my

hands and came back to eat my lunch delicious pork with rice balls and some eggplant not bad how exciting so that was like one of the most exciting moments of that particular day all day the guy opposite me has been watching go on TV I can't understand that game so go is like this old board game it's like where you have all these pieces on a board it's a bit Like um kind of like um drafts or something um I could not understand it and the guy who just watched go this game on TV all

day long so about 8:00 p.m. I had a few visitors today my girlfriend's mom and Dad they bought me some flowers they brought me some flowers from my girlfriend really sweet um her parents were really kind and said I looked better I can't believe it they've been so helpful and caring my Girlfriend is coming tomorrow and she's going to bring the two towers by Tolen the Lord of the Rings because I've just about finished Fellowship of the Ring so Lord of the Rings is in is in three volumes so I was actually reading The Fellowship

of the Ring and had just about finished it and luckily my girlfriend decided that she'd bring the next book as well so I could read that then my Nova student doctor visited me with his son I was very PRI I was very Surprised at that he was the doctor who arranged for me to come here very thoughtful of him to check up on me this evening uh a couple of my colleagues visited which was a big surprise they also uh brought me some flowers so I mred a popular they stayed for a while and we

chatted they seemed genuinely concerned and everything how nice now it's 8:15 p.m. and I'm just about to finish Fellowship of the Ring and then probably listen to some tunes and go to Sleep very pleasant how nice also I learned from one of my colleagues that it's possible to get glandula fever from a mosquito it all clicks into place I've been feeling terrible since a mosquito bit me more than 15 times in one night it's all gone downhill from there that was nearly a week before my girlfriend went away and I got sick that damn mosquito

I remember waking up in the middle of the night and scratching my Arm I looked and there was a smear of blood where ID killed the mosquito instinctively as I woke up then I noticed all the bites 3 days later I was being driven insane by all the bites I felt really bad ever since it looks like I'll need a couple of weeks off after I get out of hospital I might not even go to work until after my parents come on holiday my parents were due to come like the next month for a couple

of weeks to have a holiday in Japan and see me um so Yeah the mosquito thing I don't know if it's possible to get uh glandula fever or mononucleosis from mosquito I've I've Googled it since and I've sort of seen some things that suggest it might be possible but I think it's rare but anyway like a week before I I got really sick there was one particular night where in my uh room in in my apartment um so uh I had like this sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony and Um I would

always make sure the door was closed because mosquitoes would come in and they were like tiger mosquitoes as well like really aggressive ones the the door had an insect screen as well that one one of those kind of mesh screens that allows the air to come in but uh not insects and just this one particular night I opened the mesh screen to go out and hang something on my balcony just for a moment opened the mesh screen and closed it again and in that moment a Mosquito must have come in because I instantly then went

to sleep and I was lying down um mostly naked without a lot of covers on me cuz it was so boiling hot and that mosquito that night I think just bit me about 15 times all over my body and as I said I woke up sort of I woke up instinctively scratching my arm and I actually killed the mosquito in my sleep So I woke up looking at this blood on my arm thinking what's going on and then realized I've been bitten all over my body by this bloody mosquito and it was so annoying like

the bites were so itchy and even prevented me from being able to sleep very well and I wonder you know I wonder if that mosquito might have caused this infection but it you know as I said it all went downhill from there so who knows it might have been that I mean They call glandula fever the kissing kissing fever kiss disease or something and it's typical that it gets shared between people um when they kiss but you know I hadn't been going around kissing lots of people I mean I had my girlfriend um I wouldn't

like to suggest that she gave it to me um who knows who knows oops but anyway it was interesting so one of my colleagues had told me that that uh you can get kangela fever from a Mosquito but it's it's certainly pretty mysterious but I do remember but definitely feeling really bad like after that mosquito incident but maybe it's just a coincidence um day three it's about 3:10 in the afternoon and I'm getting a bit bored now I spent the day finishing Fellowship of the Ring getting a really long drip dozing and listening to my

favorites mini mini discs so I had these mini discs and a minis player the mini Diss had like compilations of some of my favorite music on it on them not very exciting I had a shower and a shave today that's quite exciting Also I spoke to the bloke opposite briefly so the man opposite he asked me yosa and I answered with Zushi AO nooses which I thought meant I I'm an English teacher zush no noades which meant uh you know uh Zi Nova the Nova in Zushi the The Zushi of Nova he was like ah

sua and that was about it so that was the depth of the conversation I had with the guy opposite me he was like y Costa I said Zushi uh English teacher um Nova in Zushi ah that was it so exciting I'm feeling better although I can still feel all my glands are swollen and my back aches that may be my kidneys or something the tonsil infection seems to have gone but they're still swollen I slept well last Night another 9 hours wow Mom and Dad are going to call me again at 3:45 although they don't

need to I should phone Azusa just to check that she got my mail I also might email and phone Matt and motoi motoi Moto we're going to see Oasis on Sunday the 29th so I should just let them know where I am and what what's happening so actually I had a plan to I had tickets to see Oasis um in Japan and I was going to go With a couple of friends um also my girlfriend's going to come and visit me today I don't know when though that should be pretty nice I'll have to thank

her for the flowers uh anyway I'll go downstairs in about 10 minutes to receive that phone call uh my girlfriend's bringing the two towers that's the next uh Lord of the Rings book with her so I can get stuck into that later I bet I go stir crazy later this week if you go stir crazy means you Sort of go a bit mad normally because you're stuck in one particular situation a bit like when you're in prison if you just go mad because you're stuck in one room you go stir crazy I'll probably go it'll

probably go much faster than I expect more later so day three it's six day four or day three I lost track it's 6:55 a.m. first thing in the morning I was just woken up by a nurse who is really Ganky that means sort of Energetic and she said Ohio kazas and wake up and she gave me a hot towel and put it in my face she just put this hot towel in my face I'm half asleep I had a strange dream last night I worked in some big company but I'd been away sick so I'd

lost touch with my job and I was doing really badly I didn't know what was going on my widowed mother that's my mom who's lost her husband so my widowed mother like so my dad apparently in this dream had Died my widowed mother was getting married to Fred Ward Fred Ward is a Hollywood actor so my widowed mother was getting married to Fred Ward who was an utter bastard and we hated each other I remember holding a little plant pot with a little green plant and pleading with him to treat my mother well so I

was standing there with this little plant pot with a little green plant in it maybe maybe something like this standing There with this little plant pot and saying to me please treat my mother well I said please we both want the same thing this is in my weird dream my nightmare but he just slapped the plant pot out of my hands then we went into the house and discovered that an upstairs bedroom was haunted by a ghost it had happened before but we were all really scared and we stayed in a downstairs room while I

began to phone the police or someone we Could hear noises of the Poltergeist this ghost upstairs then a lamp floated down the stairs and threw itself at me this is all in my dream right I knocked it away with my hand and I shouted it threw that at me but my mom who I think was played by Holly Hunter another Hollywood actor which is strange said to me but it didn't hit you did it and I said only because I defended myself then a glass of Brandy floated Into the room and that came towards me

and I knocked it away but then I realized that the ghost was offering it to me in order to say sorry very strange dreams are weird aren't they what do they mean so more stuff to write today uh yesterday my girlfriend came to visit which was nice although we were interrupted twice and didn't really say goodbye to each other properly anyway she brought me uh the two towers and I paid her back and she also brought Return of the King which is the third book because uh her mom had bought it for me as a

gift I was surprised I didn't expect her to buy me another present I think she's enjoying taking care of me to be honest my girlfriend also uh brought me some water and tangerines Moto also visited me which was a real surprise shout out to my friend Moto um I'd only left a message on his phone about 2 hours before so I was Really surprised when he turned up it turned out that James my brother had told him I was ill and had given him the address of the hospital he brought me some kettle chips that's

like crisps and shortbread as well as an Antonio Carlos joam CD it's like a Brazilian bosanova artist well chosen I was really glad to see him and he spoke to my girlfriend for a while before he left then nardia this is another one of my colleagues nardia was a sort of amazing Person really very eccentric and energetic and the sort of person who did lots of things organized things and everyone else got involved in her energetic plans um I say nardia was because unfortunately she's no longer with us I learned when was it 10 15

years ago that Nadia had died uh which is kind of sad um but anyway nardia visited me and brought some kind of jelly snack And a couple of copies of viz viz is a kind of funny magazine she brought me a couple of copies of viz bless her I introduced her to my girlfriend but they didn't talk a lot nardia was quite direct as she is and maybe she scared my girlfriend away or something anyway I chatted to nardia for a while which was funny because she's pretty eccentric and a good laugh now it's nearly

1 p.m. and I've just finished lunch and taken my drugs there Are two new patients in the room two old guys I've no idea what's wrong with them they arrived earlier with their shirts and trousers and ties uh their shirts and trousers and ties on and they're now lying in their respective beds wearing their pajamas I got clean ones too the pajamas are a bit like gin Bay so they're kind of like look like a little looked a little bit like traditional Japanese clothing where you fold them over and tie them on the Side uh

I'm getting quite attached to mine anyway these guys are pretty quiet but one of them is in the bed right next to me he's just right there on the other side of the curtain I think he smells a bit he smells a bit of those bags in the toilet but maybe I'm just overreacting sometimes he mutters in Japanese sort of like he seems to sort of like be talking to himself and I listen when he talks to the nurses on the other side of my bed On the other side of my bed I'm lucky because

I have the big window and I get tons of natural light on the whole it's very it's a very pleasant place to be in the morning I get sunlight on my feet and in the afternoon I get to watch The View lit by Sun from behind today it's a really clear day so the sky is blue and it's really nice and cool outside my kind of weather the natural light seems very clean and blue it's very nice I think I'll listen to a Bit bit of the orb I can't believe it this is really pleasant

but I suppose that's the idea the doctor is going to analyze my blood tomorrow then I'll see how I'm doing actually that guy next door does smell of those bags in the toilet nasty maybe I should stop taking my decongestion so I can't smell anything so decongestion are um it's a kind of medicine that you take to clear up congestion in your nose it clears the snot out of your nose so said maybe I Should stop taking them so that my nose gets blocked again so I can't smell anything actually that guy next door does

smell of those bags I've just read that it's about 7:30 p.m. now I'm still not completely sure when I when I'll be getting here sorry I'm not completely sure when I'll be getting out of here I expect it'll be at around uh I expect it will be around Saturday but even then I'm not sure I'll be able to go back to work depending on My health I may have to stay away from work until after my holiday with the family that will mean that I'll miss about one month of pay also the expenses from this

time are going to cost about 200,000 Yen I'll have to pay that when I leave and then claim it back from the health insurance company I'll be buggered for cash though meaning I I won't have any cash for the next two pay days that's like two more months so Basically it was going to be a very expensive time I wouldn't have any money um so there go my savings each month I can't save anything until at least December bollocks I'm still at about n I'm still about 900 overdrawn that's basic basically in debt Japan is

such an expensive place 8:42 p.m. I haven't written about this yet but there's a guy who works in the hospital who speaks English I was introduced to him when I first got here And he has helped me out a few times since then he's actually from Indonesia where they learn English properly in school and are more skillful in picking up foreign languages I expect not sure that's true but they certainly I think learn English um in a different way to the Japanese and learn it earlier any Indonesians I've met spoke good English his name is

Chandra San although I thought it was Sandra at first so I thought his name was Sandra which is a Girl's name but it turns out his name was Chandra Chandra son anyway he's a nice guy and has been and has been really helpful especially when seeing the doctor and when explaining my medicine to me although he's Indonesian he seems very comfortable in Japan and also seems quite Japanese in character polite a bit nervous or uncomfortable or awkward but he's quite chatty and has a laugh today he was helping me choose food from the menu I

had to choose all of next week's food although I hope I won't be here next week Sandra San had to explain all the food and there were some really funny moments where he was in stitches meaning laughing a lot trying to explain all the typical Japanese Foods on the menu sometimes he was laughing uncontrollably I think the Japanese and their eating habits are very funny particularly when it comes to eating things like natto natto is a kind of Infamous Japanese food it's basically uh soybeans which are starting to um is it ferment fermented or decomposing

soybeans and they go all sticky and they got this very pungent smell and it's kind of like uh Marmite in the UK either you love it or you absolutely hate it so natto is a very sort of characteristic Japanese food I think the Japanese are very they're funny with their eating habits Especially when it comes to eating things like natto the culture obviously suits Chandra well and I think he's quite tickled by its nuances and ins and outs tickled meaning sort of amused that's one of the charms of Japan their whole attitude towards their culture

is so Charming just the little details and how it's quite clear that they get a lot of pleasure from Little Customs like eating and preparing Certain types of food observing and commenting on Japanese everyday Customs is always a great source of amusement well the guy next to me is sound asleep like fast asleep completely asleep I think I think he still smells a bit but I can't complain this is a hospital after all he keeps muttering in Japanese though and does cliche YNS with his mouth open making a sound remember that he used to the

guy I I just hear him Going like a cartoon like a cartoon sound effect of someone yawning but i' noticed that a lot of Japanese men would do those really really sort of like cartoon sound effect stock sound effect yawning sounds like that and also sneezes actually Japanese guys also have Mega cliched sneezes too a chew they don't hold it back either they just let the sneeze take hold and do its business And they let the vocal cords relax while it happens often I hear really loud and expressive sneezes AA very funny like you'd hear

that at the station in the morning come down onto the station platform and you'd often hear like businessmen just going hatu haa ta uh day 4 7:40 a.m. the guy in the bed next to me was really noisy last night he spent a lot of time talking in his sleep and appeared to wake with a start A few times as if you wake with a start you kind of wake up like that suddenly lots and lots of sleep talking and him going today I woke with a kind of ulcer on my tongue an ulcer is

like a little painful little spot a painful little spot on your tongue I get ulcers in my mouth a lot actually and on my tongue and I got them a lot during this period after having glandular fever I Remember I used to get a lot of ulcers and I tend to get them when I'm very tired so when I get into that kind of glandular fever feeling and I still get it to this day get like a migraine headache that won't go away feel very tired and then ulcers appear in my mouth so today I

woke with a kind of ulcer on my tongue although it doesn't hurt too much my left tonsil is giving me some grief meaning it's painful and hurts a bit when I swallow So ow ah first thing this morning the nurse took a sample of my blood they're going to test it and then later I'll go to see the doctor with chandran and she'll tell me how I'm doing I have no idea what the results of the blood test will be but I have a feeling that it'll be it'll show I still have a high work

that it'll show I still have a high white blood cell count and that the glandular fever is still with me now I'm looking forward to breakfast and I'm a Bit pissed off about my tonsil hurting I'm flying through the two towers that book and I'm more than halfway through already I'm glad my girlfriend's mom bought the return of the king for me it's nearly 2: p.m. now I've just got to write some notes now so I can clear up what's going on so this is I just this is like stuff I wrote down after having

seen the doctor doc says I can leave tomorrow so phone Mr tatana at Nova to talk to him about Payment hopefully he'll pay the hospital and send the relevant forms for the hospital to complete then the hospital sends a rosu show and medical certificate to JMA that's the insurance company and they refund Mr tatana no worries so these notes were all for my own benefit so I remembered what was going on so phone Mr Tana phone Nova phone the insurance company speak to Mom and Dad phone my girlfriend's mom and tell her When I'll be

leaving apart from that I'll need a rosu show which is some sort of like uh document and a medical certificate myself for my own reference questions for the doctor what should I do after I leave when can I work will I need medicine will I have to report back to the hospital at all can I drink alcohol or should I avoid it how much rest time will I need can I take regular showers cuz they were telling me that I Shouldn't take showers because my temperature was too high can I do any kind of exercise

and then when I get out I need to sort out the next two weeks with Nova uh baah blah lots of other things 8:50 that evening looks like I'll be leaving tomorrow I've got quite a few questions for the doctor and chandran is going to help me he's been really helpful and also really seems to have enjoyed helping me out I expect translating for me and being a kind of Counselor for me has been much more exciting than his usual job maintenance of things like beds tables Etc so Chandra San was actually like a he

was kind of like a caretaker he would he would repair tables and chairs do repairs on on things in the hospital he normally wasn't a translator but he was the only one who spoke any English in the hospital really some of the some of the high level doctors spoke some English but none of The nurses really did so chandran would be asked to come and help me out so normally he'd be downstairs like fixing tables and then he'd come up and have to talk to me um I wonder how often he gets to have personal

contact with the patients anyway tomorrow will probably be quite we'll probably be quite busy and I must make sure I have everything sorted out in my mind before I leave I've got to deal with the issues of my condition and how much rest I need after Leaving Etc so I thought I'd be leaving the next day but I didn't in fact I spent another week in the hospital the payment issues and stuff tomorrow I'll phone Nova to tell them when I can realistically return to work I'd like to put that off until after that after

my parents holiday I actually had a holiday booked in my schedule in October but that was like a few weeks you know few weeks away the idea of going back to Work and going back into that working routine and teaching those kids classes the idea of it was just horrible I have to have to say so I was really hoping um I would be able to find a way to avoid that and go back to work at the end of October um um as for now I've just got one more night in my bed surrounded

by my curtain the guy next door continues to make his grunting sucking and yawning noises as well as bits of sleep talking and even Laughter the room is quite full now seven people I think and I'm glad to have had this spot by the window I'll be saying goodbye to it all tomorrow the nurses who I've managed to communicate with and I've got to know their faces the view from my window the bloke opposite and his chattering muttering conversation with his family every afternoon the toilet with its sliding door and disgusting smelling bags of urine

on one wall with their steel Lids Urine stained and corroded the Angelic Coral music played throughout the the the ward uh before lights out at 9:00 p.m. every night the regular cups of Japanese tea poured from Big steel teapots the meals brought on trays with onigiri fried fish salad and various Japanese Oddities all edible enough my medson little bottle a little bottle with white liquid and my various pills having the drip twice a day one large bottle of Pink liquid and one small bottle of clear antibiotics strangely it became a bit Pleasant having the liquid

dripping directly into my body although I couldn't feel it except for the taste in my mouth and the buildup of snot in my nose the plastic attachment that sticks into my left forearm so it was my arm actually and is stuck down with white bandage tape it doesn't hurt at all my cool Japanese pajamas very comfortable The other patients who weren't overly accommodating but neither was neither was I to them but I expect they all had their own problems to deal with everyone minded their own business mostly my Lord of the Rings trilogy which has

taken up most of my time here regular visits to the outpatients area every morning ex examin examinations by the doctor Yamamoto or the woman with short hair who spoke some English always I'd spend 5 minutes at the Nebulizer which has tubes that go either into the nose or the mouth and Supply antibiotics I think as a kind of mist into uh to be inhaled so i' I'd have to sit in front of this machine this big machine and sit down and breathe into this sort of mask and apparently it would it would Supply this kind

of antibiotic Mist into my into my system I'm leaving tomorrow but I don't think this will be over for a while it takes a few weeks to get over Glandular fever so I expect I'll spend some time at home now getting bored and having to look after myself and having to put up with my flatmate um I had two flatmates the first flatmate I had I didn't really get on with him very well and found him a bit annoying I mean looking back on it now he wasn't that bad um I've quite enjoyed the sanctuary

of this hospital and the convenience having other people look after my health while I lie around All day reading daydreaming and listening to music I'll have to continue this Spirit when I get home and try to take care of myself I hope the doctor gives me more antibiotics and some instructions on what I should and shouldn't do a lot of rest is probably a good idea I expect I'll be over this eventually I can still feel the glands like a numb stiff or tight feeling around my neck and head I had that for weeks afterwards

also there's a bit of Pain on my left tonsil a kind of dry pain just hanging on at the end I've also picked up a couple of mouth ulcers on the roof of my mouth For Heaven's Sake and on my tongue I hope they don't flare up and I hope they don't spark any more infection in the tonsils anyway I fancy getting some sleep tonight so good night day five well I'm still here I'm not leaving today but I'm staying for a few more days until my condition improves my Tonsils my tonsil liers has returned

a bit and is quite painful although I'm really tired uh also I'm really tired even though I spend most of my time lying down so I'm here because I need rest and care I wonder how long I'll stay and I wonder how long I can stay before the insurance companies say they won't pay anyway best not to worry about things um things with the insurance company and Nova are start are sorted out for the time being and I'm a bit Downhearted because my throat is painful again and I have ulcers on my tongue and on

the roof of my mouth it's very uncomfortable the guy opposite me has left good for him I always thought he seemed pretty healthy he's being replaced by the guy who was in the bed next to me he quickly claimed the only other window place in the room clever chap he's still yawning loudly and muttering in his sleep the room is quite full there are seven of us now so most People have their curtains drawn to protect their personal space a few of them have those urine bags but they're not too smelly must be nasty having

to carry one of them around though I don't really understand why they did they maybe they had um um May maybe they had urine issues or kidney issues I'm not sure um one guy seems to have lots of fleem that's like stuff that you have to stuff stuff that makes you Cough and he gurgles and coughs and spits into a little bowl lovely being sarcastic remember he sounded like Daffy Duck so he made these weird slightly scary noises when he was coughing and it made me feel oh my God he seems so unwell he'd make

these kind of noises so he'd be over there [Music] going and then spitting into this bowl it was really horrible I got a great package from home today with good Letters a card from James some photos of home which made me feel homesick information about glandula fever now I know a lot and it seems to make sense rest is most important and my tonsils are sensitive because of the virus newspaper cuttings an edge magazine that's a magazine about computer games although I've got a bit cut off from the world of video games it's still interesting

to read people's intelligent comments about it so I used to be like Really into video games for a while the end of the '90s and the beginning of the ughs I was like quite interested in the industry and stuff maybe I could have worked in the video games industry if i' if I'd stayed in poool after University and got maybe a a job at sosis which was a video games company that was based in Liverpool could have had a totally different career but I didn't anyway um uh my girlfriend said she visit me Today and

I'll speak to Mom and Dad on the phone later not much more to tell to tell you chandran has proved to be a very important person I bought another notebook where this will continue I also need da Thursday I'm staying until the doctors think I can go um for the insurance the doctor will complete the doctor's note when I leave and they'll give it to me to fax blah blah blah blah blah so then I moved on to the other notepad what did I do with it There it is okay I hope you're finding this

interesting um like I said I wasn't I'm not sure but I'm just doing this anyway because because kind of like I felt like I wrote These Diaries right and you when you write a diary you just kind of think what's the point is anyone ever going to read this um so I didn't want this all to be a complete waste of time writing all this stuff and just no one ever reading It I don't know I just feel like at the time I was writing it I sort of hoped that someone might read it that

someone might find it interesting and so that's why I'm I guess that's why I'm reading it out because I wanted some of this to be heard by someone otherwise you know what what's going to happen to these Diaries when I when I die eventually um my wife or my kids or whoever's left are going to have to go through my possessions they'll Find this bag that I've got here in the office with all these Diaries in it are they really going to read that stuff what's that I don't know I mean in any case maybe

they'll just throw those things away they might not have time to read them maybe they'll read them and find them fascinating maybe they'll read them and find them shocking cuz they will learn things about me that they didn't know before stuff that I'm not sharing in this episode in any case I Felt like I wanted this stuff to be to be heard so let me continue there's not that much more right so there's really just a few more pages in this one um so day six 5:30 p.m. one of my colleagues just visited me she

gave me a really cool Star Wars Lego pen with interchangeable parts and a Lego man Darth Vader with a little cape and a scarred face under his helmet and everything sort of thing even when I was 25 years old that's the sort of thing That appealed to me uh my colleague Diane is being really great and trying to sort things out for me with Nova she was like my sort of line manager senior teacher at the school where I worked and she was being very helpful thanks to Diane for helping out a lot it looks

like foreign Personnel have mucked a few things up and haven't told the Zushi school that I can't work over the next few days it's making life difficult for the staff and teachers Diane is speaking To Nova now and I reckon it's going to get me some em she's going to get me some emergency leave so Diane was really helpful in helping me get some time off um uh Diane also brought me some flowers from the Japanese staff and from uh my new area manager very nice it also looks like I won't be able to see

OAS on Sunday I never ever got to see them I've never seen Oasis Live and uh I'm not sure I ever will um depends if they if they stay Together uh because they've reformed recently to do a few gigs if they if they stay together and do more shows maybe I'll go and see them but depends how much those tickets are anyway uh I I won't be able to see Oasis on Sunday I might not even be able to be out of the hospital by then considering I know so I need so much rest also

going to the gig wouldn't be a good idea I'm gutted I was looking forward to seeing the Gallaghers and perhaps shouting some abuse at them Or something um I've got to arrange with Matt how he can get the tickets from my apartment I'll probably have to speak to my flatmate and arrange for them to meet on Sunday at the apartment I hope he's there if not Matt will have to come and visit me here to get the key um this is before the days when all the tickets were online you could just share them so

easily there's a guy in the room now he arrived yesterday or a Couple of days ago he must have some throat problem because he keeps coughing up fleem and spitting it into a plastic bag or a bowl or something all the curtains are drawn around his bed it's Grim because of the noise it sounds like an angry sick Daffy Duck and is really nasty poor bloke sometimes it sounds like he's puking and clearing his throat it's a bit nasty but it's not as bad for me to here as it is for him to suffer I've

nearly finished The Return of the King the whole Lord of the Rings story is an absolute work of Genius amazing storytelling and at times really beautiful the nurse opposite seems to be draining a guy's urine bag into a bucket the throat guy is calling for attention or something it's all comfortable here except for other people's suffering a few more days of rest here and I should go home I won't be able to rest as well there but I feel like I'm not quite as sick as the other Guys around me still rest is most important

for me now and this is the best place for that tonsils and ulcers are still giving me jip meaning giving me pain giving me trouble and I'm tired the doctor says I should just sleep I'll lie back and listen to the orb and Vibe out and maybe drift off into a sleep or something day eight I woke up yesterday with a red rash all over my face and neck that means red spots all over my whole body in fact so I woke up on day Eight suddenly big red rash all over me today it's much

worse my face is all red and blotchy and there are tons of red spots all over my neck body arms hands Etc it's a side effect from the antibiotics but it looks really ugly and it's quite hot and itchy so it turns out that I'm allergic to penicillin which is a problem when they were pumping bags of it into me every day um it's making me feel a bit depressed mainly because I just look so Bad still it could be worse I'm not feeling all that bad my tonsils have cleared up a bit since a

few days ago and my uls have calmed down the rash is a bit itchy though I'm a bit paranoid about people visiting me now I feel okay about it but I wonder how other people would react I don't know what my girlfriend would think I suppose it would be interesting to see her reaction I've got a feeling it would be surprise and amazement rather than sympathy but I Don't know I think she doesn't know how to react to me sometimes because she doesn't know how I'll react or how I'll feel I think she doesn't say

things that are on her mind because she thinks it'll piss me off she doesn't realize that I like it when people speak their minds and ask me personal questions anyway I want to see her so I hope she visits me today it looks like I'll be here for another four or more days now that this rash has appeared they're taking another Blood test tomorrow then I'm seeing the dermatologist on Wednesday today is Sunday I remember seeing that dermatologist so that's someone who specializes in skin conditions and he had like he must have when he was

younger he must have had like a really bad skin disease cuz his skin was all red with like like holes in it he had like really like a really terrible like his skin was all scarred on his face that was interesting meeting Him thinking wow this guy's got this guy must have survived some horrible skin condition and that maybe this is why he became a dermatologist himself he was really nice guy I remember that I don't I don't mind staying in the hospital but I'm starting to get really bored now I'm running out of music

and I've finished Lord of the Rings I might have to get someone to run an errand to my apartment and pick up some more music some Underpants and another book for me I'll Be seeing the doctor in a while might be a bit embarrassing and chandran isn't here today so I'll have to struggle without him the doctor is really cool actually he's quite young and friendly and has a sense of humor the nurses in this surgery really annoy me though they stand around while the doctor is talking to me and stare at me with the

most amazing self-important and knowing Expressions on their faces which I'm Sure are not right they just like to look like they're really important and really understand and agree with what the doctor says and does also they nod knowingly when I'm explaining something to Chandra in English when I know for sure that they can't understand what I'm saying it just proves that their whole demeanor is just for show and isn't backed up by any real understanding was a bit harsh off me wasn't it to write that the the nurses were all so helpful But I was

getting irritated at this point and for some reason the nurse's Behavior was starting to annoy me day nine the guy opposite has a visitor and I've seen him before he wears tracksuit trousers and football boots with molded studs so the guy oppos it would have these visitors and one guy would come and he'd be wearing football boots right now they weren't it it football boots with studs you know the studs on the bottom of football boots he would walk Into the Hospital uh Ward into the hospital room with these football boots on he walks into

the room and makes the noise with his studs on the ground why the hell is he wearing football boots they're not muddy or anything either so I just this really bothered me I just couldn't understand why this guy was wearing football boots I mean fair enough maybe he'd been playing football and then went to visit his uncle or something in the hospital but you Imagine that he would take the football boots off right especially when walking with studs you know the sound of studs walking on a flat hard floor you just think it's not the

sound that would bother me it's just the fact that why is he why did he keep the football boots on I just could never understand that and I wrote here it's a typical Japanese misunderstanding maybe he thinks they're just trainers unlikely why did why would I assume that he Didn't understand but I didn't I just couldn't get my head around why this guy walked in with his football boots on but there would often be those sort of moments in Japan like things that I would i' just see things and I'd just be thinking what what

is going on I just can't understand that at all and then I wrote maybe he's just come from a football game but you'd expect him to take off his boots before visiting his friend or dad or uncle in Hospital very strange my rash is worse and is now all over my body my face looks ugly and blotchy and I've got spots all over my hands and arms and legs and chest and back everywhere it's pretty [ __ ] up and it just seems to be one thing after another um so after going through all the

rest of it you know then I got this rash and the rash got pretty bad in some areas and I've still got some little scars actually on some like parts of my Elbows they still scars where the the rash got quite bad um I didn't take my painkiller after lunch because I thought I didn't need it but now my tonsils are hurting a lot clearly I need the painkiller the doctor and nurses have stopped giving me antibiotics now so the rash should go away in a few days I'm getting so bored now I've listened to

most of my mini discs and I've finished Lord of the Rings I've got some other books and Magazines so I'll just get into them and write a couple of letters can't do much now when I've got my drip on though my girlfriend might visit tonight I hope she doesn't mind this rash I've just realized that I've lost track of all the days in this diary I'll have to write the dates each time now it's nearly 10 p.m. and the guy opposite is making all kinds of over-the-top snoring noises so like that sucking and snorting Etc

he Also moans and laughs and stuff in his sleep Monday the 30th of September this is frustrating it's about 10:15 p.m. by which time I'm usually asleep here but instead I'm twisting and turning in my bed and going over all my failed opportunities with women in the past and getting more and more frustrated as I go along I can't believe it I'm in a hospital in Japan with glandular fever and covered in a red rash and all I can think about are all the embarrassing Moments and failed opportunities I've had with women in my life

this is just ridiculous and I can't believe it adding to the stupidity is the pen I'm using one of the students gave it to me via uh Jodie one of my colleagues who visited me today it's pink with a plastic myr liion on the top from Singapore when you press down on the nib of the pen the Merr lion lights up with a pink light it's crazy so I was just writing with this kind of silly pen and writing this Quite serious feeling stuff I'm just missing my girlfriend blah blah blah blah blah da da

da da da I'm just going to skip past some of that stuff um I'm just frustrated stuck in this hospital bed with a painful throat and itchy skin Tuesday the 1st of October it's about 7:30 p.m. there's a massive typhoon right over ahead now like a big Storm big weather system strong wind lots of rain very strong wind there's a massive typhoon right overhead now it came in off the Pacific Ocean today and its path is directly over this area it's blasting the windows making them shake and whistle and threaten to break the whole hospital

is shaking because of the wind it's quite mad really the doctor told me again that I can probably go home today she and there are two doctors who I see one man and one woman has to Consult the dermatologist who's going to have another look at me tomorrow as long as this rash isn't too serious it seems to have calmed down today I should be allowed to go about the rash and the nurses I remember that that that after I've been in the hospital for a while and I was the only let's say Westerner in

the hospital it's seemed that word traveled around the hospital and some of the nurses decided that they wanted to come and see Me because I don't know what it's like these days in Japan but at that time it was still a little bit rare for Japanese people to have much contact with let's say non-japanese people or at least people from Europe or from Britain or something westerners it was still a little bit rare and it's still a little bit of a of a of a novelty for them so I actually used to get visits from

nurses that I think weren't even working in my Ward and they would come just to kind of like have a look at me you know like sometimes they there'd be like two or three of them would come at a time and they'd come and sort of talk to me in Japanese I couldn't really answer and they just come and stand there or maybe have a Look At Me Maybe sort of take my temperature or something and I got the distinct feeling they were there just cuz they wanted to see the come and see the English

guy In the hospital and I remember once this nurse I'd never met before came and told me she was going to rub cream into my body and she took my t-shirt off sorry my not my t-shirt my pajama top she took my pajama top off and spent quite a long time massaging uh my back and uh rubbing this cream into me that was interesting so um so I was saying I should be allowed to go home tomorrow I was really depressed and frustrated today I'm not Even looking forward to going home that much probably because

I'm depressed but it feels like I don't like it when my flatmate is around and I just ignore the fact that a lot of what he does really annoys me it just seems to be little petty things that he doesn't realize he's doing and he'd probably think I was being a wanker for bringing them up like if I complained to him about them he'd probably hate me for it still I reckon I'm right to get pissed off examples he Doesn't clean or rinse the sink after a shave and leave stubble and shaving foam all over

the sink so it' shave and wash it it's fill the sink with water shave right and then wash his razor in the water and then just pull the plug out and all the the water would go down into the plug but then all of the bits of stubble bits of hair that he shaved off his face and and uh shaving foam would be stuck to the side of the Sink he wouldn't clean up the sink afterwards he'd just leave it so I'd go in there to like wash my hands brush my teeth and stuff to

go to bed and then I'd have to clean up his dirty sort of sink and other things he would um other petty little stuff I said it's not too bad I suppose actually I'm probably being too sensitive and I should just chill out anyway I'm really ready to get out of here the boredom is getting me down and I feel like it's making me Tired and sick this typhoon is making everything uncomfortable along with my itchy rash I just want to be whisked away I'll try to go to sleep strange I finished Lord of the

Rings and I was so engrossed now it feels like there's an empty space in my life odd 2nd of October 6:40 a.m. the typhoon has gone and outside it's sunny with with a perfectly blue sky and all is calm 5:00 p.m. the doctor told me I can leave tomorrow I kept constantly being told I Could leave but then told that I couldn't the doctor told me I can leave tomorrow good I've been getting super bored over the last couple of days and feeling pissed off now I've got to deal with Nova and apply for medical

leave I'm trying to decide how much leave I should apply for the most healthy option would be all the way up to my holiday which is about 2 weeks that way my body would completely recover my liver would repair itself fully Etc or I could apply For about one week and work for a few days before the holiday one problem is that my holiday begins on the 18th but my family arrive on the 15th it would be easier if I could leave right if I could get leave that means time off right up to my

holiday so I could meet my family when they first get here I'll go for that I reckon it will also give me a chance to get properly well I'm screwed for money anyway I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do the next two weeks going To be very quiet and I'll have to try and save as much of the cash I have now as possible to last me for next month and for as long as possible I remember that twoe period I spent a lot of time just really slowing myself down just um trying

to live without any stress at all and it was a very sort of serene and very peaceful period actually the weather had got better it wasn't boiling hot and humid anymore and I it was a Really important learning experience for me learning how to dstress and how to live slowly and how to live Moment by moment in a day and how to start cooking proper food for myself and just how to slow down and live in a more mentally healthy kind of way I just look back on that time with it in a really really

nice way even though at the time it was like not great but I kind of learned how to relax uh I've still got this rash although it's Not as bad it itches though and the Really the worst most itchy part well I can't tell you what that was but it was extremely inconvenient and annoying uh 8:00 more visitors Matt and Moto visited me that was cool they brought me some food and magazines and stuff Matt traveled a long way to see me um du du now I'm alone again this is probably my last night here

what a strange experience I was just thinking This Hospital feels like a little box and I'm living inside but outside there are just many more boxes all connected I suddenly felt very claustrophobic in this country like there's no space or free air or room to breathe Japan is great but I think it's just too closed in for me I feel claustrophobic here I need more space I did used to get the feeling that I was always knocking my head on things or that rooms were always slightly too small for me but also got The feeling

that so in the little room outside of that room was just like everywhere where I lived I felt like was very um very Urban like a very builtup area very compressed with so many people all living in a small space and so much so many buildings on top of each other and then like high high rise buildings with many floors and then under those Buildings as well a whole underground systems with train lines and underground car parks and basement and I just felt like I was in the middle of this incredibly compressed and crowded place

um I feel like I need more silence and more personal space at school it's kind of a constant probing of my personal life which I don't mind this would be like the way the students would often be very curious about me which I understand because like I said before They didn't meet many non-japanese people that much or at least people from the UK and so in lessons a lot of the time people were very curious about me and would often probe my personal life clearly since then I've got used to that and in in fact

that's kind of a lot of what I do on my podcast to an extent like this reading this diary out but at the time I remember it felt a bit invasive sometimes that students would often be Very sort of curious about me all the time which I didn't mind that much although I think being a Nova teacher really feeds people's fevered egos this is also another feeling I would get that some of the teachers at the school uh let this curiosity from the Japanese and this sort of sense of interest that the Japanese had in

us that they would let that go to their head and it would make them arrogant I said it's a big ego thing Because you feel like an important and special person but it's also quite pathetic because it's just not real or something or at least Japanese people act really impressed with you because they're being polite right so maybe Japanese people are being polite when they seem so impressed and interested in you um and everything you say is like oh wow that's fascinating maybe that's just politeness but for some People they would just go to their

heads and make them bigheaded and arrogant I feel like there are a lot of people here that love Nova and get a lot out of it and it feeds their egos but at home they're just very ordinary and unspecial that's the Charisma man phenomenon workout or something I want wide open spaces and no people from miles around Thursday the 3rd of October I was discharged today meaning allowed to Leave the hospital finally I just wrote a big final Hospital diary entry but in the wrong diary now I can't find the other diary where that was

written it wasn't in the first one I was reading from some other diary I wrote this long entry but I can't find it anyway uh typical typical I wanted the whole Hospital Escapade to be captured in this diary but you'll just have to check the other one again can't find it not that It really matters I wonder what will happen to all these Diaries I suppose they just form a general collection of thoughts and comments a lot of it probably sounds the same but as I said in the other diary I hope someone reads this

and not just nosy flatmates sneaking into my bedroom but real people that I love maybe people I haven't met yet maybe people I have loved for a long time so I was imagining the future when maybe someone would Discover these Diaries and it could be like now I'm married you know I'm married and I've got two kids maybe those would be the people who would read this one day but at the time I wrote this I didn't have any significant others in my life you know other than my parents and my brother you know so

I was imagining that maybe the people one day who read this will be people I love or people I've Loved for a long time Uh or maybe people I know and I'm yet to love whoever you are I hope you have shared something with me after reading this and I hope it wasn't just funny and embarrassing but has at least shown you something about me or the world or maybe even yourself I think I was being a little bit over ambitious with that one I don't think it was quite as profound as I had thought

but what I the experience I had I felt was a very profound and weird different experience Always very difficult to get those experiences and feelings down on paper um sometimes I write here just to please myself and sometimes I write with a reader in mind so I can actually reach someone through this it's very difficult to make emotional connections with people on an everyday basis imagine this as a kind of Message in a Bottle or a time capsule or maybe a fishing line whatever however or whoever I don't Think there is anything really special or

very informative in my Diaries but it's a part of me not a whole representation but an element of myself the part that writes in Diaries so I hope you have felt something from reading this and maybe you've learned something too that it's no good just saying the same old things to yourself and worrying about the same things if you always worry about the same things and that never seems to Change why not choose to not worry about them what difference would it make to your life how about making a decision to try to make the

most of your life think positive worry less but be mindful and considerate of your actions enjoy yourself enrich your life take risks but be prepared to face the consequences or don't take risks but don't regret those decisions communicate with your loved ones and stick by your family if you have something good to say say it even If it's just written in a diary it's there somewhere in the world representing you and your positive feeling don't be too quick to deal out judgment we can't see all the angles in every situation and there's usually some reason

for something everyone has a place in the world and we all affect each other somehow so try to trust the world around you this is beginning to sound like I'm preaching I hope you enjoyed my Hospital Diary I hope I captured the experience for you Luke so that's it for what it's worth those were my Japanese Hospital Diaries and I felt compelled to read them out to you I hope that you've enjoyed listening to them and as I said there that you learned something from the experience leave your comments in the comment section listeners if

you have any um I don't know what do you make of that whole experience that I Had and I mean again I don't think I really managed to kind of get through to the real sort of profound stuff but it felt like a fairly profound experience for me I guess I learned to perhaps look after myself I grew up a little bit um I learned perhaps how to control my mind a little bit more you know how to um I learned a certain amount of I I got a bit of I learned how to find

a bit more peacefulness in your Mind or something h um okay this has got to be the last time I cover this story uh on this podcast I think I've probably got it out of my system now uh but let me know how that was for you was that interesting I mean what did you get from that um have you ever had a similar experience did you ever have have you ever had glandular fever how was it for you and just which things that came up in this Episode um stay in your mind which things

struck Accord with you let me know in the comments section okay and I'll speak to you again in the next episode actually hold on a second that's not the end uh because um after finishing this episode I went and had lunch and I just thought to myself about a couple of other things I wanted to add at the end of this episode just to kind of wrap this up one of those things was it's a Pity that I couldn't find that I Can't find that other diary because I wrote one final diary entry which I

think um summarized the whole experience quite well and explained and told the story about what what happened when I left the hospital and stuff like that so it's a real pity I can't find that um and so that's that that's one thing another thing is that I wanted to say something about writing a diary um let's say two let's see two things first thing is that um for me Personally looking back at some of my old Diaries again I feel like I wish I had written more about the actual things that happened to me um

people I met places I went to and the stuff that happened so I wish I had given more of a an account of things that went on now this Japanese holid holiday diary kind of a holiday this Japanese Hospital diary was a bit different because I was actually a lot of the time talking about things that Were happening to me but my other Diaries um a lot of those ones are just filled with ah just very introspective stuff me trying to express my innermost feelings expressing just moments when I would feel frustrated or whatever that's

when I would write in my diary and so it's kind of very internal introspective stuff and now several decades or more uh after that I look back at those Diaries and think to myself what would have been much better um would be if I had actually written about the things that had happened places I'd been to people I'd seen and written more of an account of each day or account of moments in my life with my thoughts and feelings attached to it because I think that would be much more interesting to read and also much

more um uh evocative as well when you when You when you read those things again it really brings you back to the feelings emotions and also allows you to kind of see what happened how did I react to things I think that's much more interesting so if you are writing a diary I would recommend that you do write about the things that have happened to you don't just write about your thoughts and feelings without um without the events and moments that are attached to them as well um another Thing about writing a diary is that

actually it can be very good exercise uh for your English and I've said before that um if you're looking for ways to work on your English you've got to try and find various ways and for writing um it's I think it's a very good idea to write a diary in English and it doesn't have to be that ambitious you can just write about a couple of things you did and the things that you learned from them or things you know the way you felt About them you can try and express your feelings describe things you

did talk about how you feel try and write regularly even if it's just a paragraph each day uh that can be I think a good exercise because it helps you to find your voice in English now I spent let's see I started writing a diary when I was about 16 and I'm more or less finished writing a diary um I don't know maybe about um 10 years ago 15 Years ago something like that when I decided that uh it was time to stop for various reasons uh what am I what was my point so yeah

yeah so I wrote a diary for like from maybe the age of 16 to about the age of 36 something like that so that's about um is that 20 years that's about 20 years of diary writing quite a lot I think it did help me with my ability to talk and my ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings I think it really did and I think that Writing regularly in English you could be writing about anything um but actually putting your ideas down trying to structure your ideas and express yourself in English um is a

very good exercise so I would recommend doing that writing a diary obviously when you're improving your writing you got to think about the kinds of writing that you will probably have to do in English which would probably mean writing emails writing reports Maybe writing essays things like that you know what what what kinds of writing do you really will you really need to do or do you really need to do so obviously it would be a good idea to practice writing those specific types of text because there's all of the you know there's all the

the the structural things organizational things um text um um sort of conventions of those sorts of texts as well that you've got to practice but at the basic level Expressing yourself in English in writing um regularly I think is a very good exercise okay what else did I want to say I wanted to maybe just mention what happened after I left the hospital so I was discharged from the hospital I said goodbye to Chandra San managed to say goodbye to him uh I didn't hadn't really developed any kind of relationship with anyone else in the

hospital so I at least said goodbye to him and then off I went after spending Yeah about two weeks in there and um uh I had a bag like a fairly large shoulder bag with all my stuff in it that people had brought me uh clothes and books and my mini disc player and mini discs and other bits and pieces so I had that over my shoulder and um going out into the world was kind of weird uh going out into the busy bustling nature of the world just trying to walk down the street avoiding

people crossing the road and people getting in Your way it was already exhausting just walking to the train station and it seemed like a really long and difficult Journey just having I was only I was only in the hospital for just about 2 weeks it's not even that long but you get accustomed to that kind of pace of life and the quietness and stuff and so being back outside was tiring I made it back to my apartment and was very tired it was exhausting carrying the bag walking up and down steps was Really tiring I

was still I still had quite a lot of you know recovery to do from this not very serious um condition right um but the annoying thing was I remember I got to my door and looked for my key card to open the door to my apartment and realized I didn't have it that I'd given it to one of my colleagues to so they could go into my apartment and get my stuff for me so I got all the way to my apartment Door and couldn't get in and it was in the middle of the day

it was like lunchtime or something and I was so dejected and so sort of depressed at that moment I remember just sitting down on the steps with my bag and just feeling so bloody sorry for myself and such a loser eventually a friend of mine who lived in the same building as me I think I texted him he um managed to bring me some keys he during his lunch break or Something he came and gave me keys to his apartment so I went into his apartment and I spent a few hours until my other colleague

was able to come and meet me and give me the key I spent a few hours just basically lying down on their sofa listening to the new Beck album and this was 2002 and Beck's latest album was called sea change so I remember lying there listening to sea change which is actually quite a sort of sad album it's a fantastic album but It's quite sad so I had this very sad sort of moment lying there um listening to this Beck album um and then eventually got my key card and I was then able to get

back into my apartment it was weird to see all my stuff again and then you know that started my two week recovery period where I didn't have to work very as I said before living very quietly and slowly um and uh then yeah then my parents and my brother arrived and they were here for about They were here they were they were there for about 10 days and that was actually great obviously because I got to spend some time with them after having had this unpleasant experience and showed them around the place and we we

visited some tourist areas and then I you know I was feeling much better when it was time to work again and you know went back to work and learned how to Pace myself learned how to learned various tricks as a Teacher you sort of learn these tricks over the years of how to manage your energy levels how to prepare yourself in advance and the course books that we used in that particular school I got to know lots of the lessons very very well and was able to kind of go into uh lessons knowing that I

was going to do like lesson 7A and I just had it all every step of the lesson mapped out in my brain already and had work you know doing those lessons again and again and Again you you you kind of learn the best ways to do them so it got easier and easier and more and more enjoyable and the next year of my life in Japan was one of the best years of my life um as a whole I think I had ups and downs and the glandular fever sort of seemed to come back sometimes

and I'd feel really and I'd get migraine headaches and stuff occasionally but um you know I deepened my experience in Japan and kind of got involved in other things like I joined Another band and played some really interesting concerts with them and just you know basically went on to have a really great 12 months after two years I decided I had to leave Japan one of the reasons for that was that my mom was ill and I wanted to be at be home to be there um luckily she recovered fully and the rest of it

of course as you know because she's been on the podcast and the rest of it but um I wanted to go home and be There and another reason was that I knew that if I'd stayed if I stayed longer in Japan then it would have been really hard for me to leave you know you kind of think right I'm going to get out now after two years because if I stay longer I'm going to end up here for 15 years and I didn't want to be that far away from my family and uh I felt

like my life back home which in a way felt like my real life was waiting for me and I had to go back and try and work on some Other kind of career in the end I continued teaching English um so that's kind of part of what happened um my girlfriend at the time who I've mentioned a lot during this episode uh we we broke up a couple of months after the events of um this episode um not that we were ever really that serious I won't go into all the detail her parents and and

both her and her parents were lovely and very sweet her Parents were so patient and helpful with me um and my parents were particularly thankful to my girlfriend's parents um you know for looking after me when they couldn't um so that's all I wanted to add at the end of this episode okay all right so I hope hope you enjoyed this episode uh for what it's worth and I will speak to you in the next one but For now it's time to say goodbye bye by boy boy