Time for a little visit to the hospital

The older one gets the more likely it is that some part of one's body is going to need some special attention by a doctor. I guess it was my turn to have a problem.

I had a small lump on my forehead (my upper leftside). And, to make a very long story shortened it turned out to be skin cancer. The doctor said "we need to remove that" so here I am at the Yokosuka Kyosai Hospital in my private room, wearing my operating room gown waiting for 2:00pm to go to the operating room.

I'm putting on a brave happy face in front of my wife. I (I should say "we" because my wife did everything) checked into the hospital at 9:30am and the first thing they did was give me a COVID test. They stuck a long flexible Q-tip sort of thing down my nose (first one nostril then another in the other); even though the lady in the lab was very nice and cheerful it was not fun.

At noon Emi left me alone to go and eat lunch in town at her favorite Chinese restaurant. I was served hospital food in my room.  I was surprised by how bad the hospital food was. 

After lunch I contemplated my bed. It looked kind of like a big baby crib. I thought to myself "so this is what getting old is all about, we turn into a big baby".

Hey! At least the view from my room is nice. 

Now I'm like a puppy dog that's happy to see Emi return from her lunch. 

I may not be wearing a puppy dog collar but I do have a hospital identification bracelet. One good thing about this hospital is that everywhere you go, whatever you do, anytime anything is going to be done... they make sure you are who you are. Every single time I'm always asked "what's your name".

It's getting closer to 2:00pm. What's next?

A nice lady came to my room and hooked me up to an IV (intravenous bag) and started stuff dripping into me. She also checked my BP (that's short for blood pressure) and it was a little bit high. I laughed and said the high BP was probably because I'm a little nervous. 

Not long after getting hooked up the same nice lady said it's time to go to the operating room. She asked me if I needed to be wheeled in or could I walk on my own. I walked. When we arrived at the operating room I was greeted by my doctor and her team of OR people (OR is short for operating room; I'm picking up on all this fancy doctor talk 😎). The first thing I noticed was that all the OR team members were pretty young ladies. I knew my doctor was an attractive young women but I never expected the whole team would be so attractive too!

Then the lady that brought me to the OR told everyone that I was feeling nervous! My doctor asked me "Michael-san, are you feeling nervous?" What! me? feeling nervous? LOL, not me, I'm cool, let's do this thing! 

Luckily for me, my wife wasn't in the OR too, she'd have told them that I was not a tough guy, I was just a big baby! 

Anyway, the team went to work and after an hour of cutting and sewing the deed was done and I was wheeled back to my room. They had removed a piece of skin about the size of a postage stamp. The doctor showed it to me and told me that they'd send it to the lab for testing to make sure they got all the cancer out.

Here I am chilling out in my post operation sweats and my cool head bandage. Emi left me shortly after this and a little later my doctor and a couple members of the OR team visited me to see if I was OK. Then, that evening at 9:00pm my IV was removed and I went to sleep. Some pain killing pills helped with my sleeping a lot. The next morning after being checked out I was able to check out of the hospital and go home.

Me in my kitchen the following morning. A quick picture before I do the clean, prep and bandage thing. At this point it was still sore but not enough to need anymore pain killers. I was scheduled to return to the hospital in 5 days to have the stitches removed and get the results from the lab on my piece of skin.  

A quick walk around the outside of the Yokosuka Kyosai Hospital.

This is the main entrance to the hospital. They are always busy. 

This is where the patients stay. I call it the hospital hotel.

The main hospital and the hotel are joined together by a walkway that spans over the street.

This is the entrance to the hospital hotel. I can't believe that they have tulips blooming in December.

This is the secondary entrance to the hospital hotel for patients dropped off by a vehicle. 

It's actually a very nice and well run hospital. I was treated exceptionally well and my doctor and all the other staff were outstanding. Unfortunately the food sucked! Maybe they serve bad food to help motivate people to get well quick and go home as soon as possible. 

5 days later the stitches were removed and the results from the lab were positive (no cancer).

My doctor posing for a picture with me just after removing the stitches.

There are two hero's in this story: One is the doctor, she was so kind and professional throughout the whole evolution of this thing. The other hero is my wife. She was with me every step of the way and took care of all the scheduling and paper work, and... she was the biggest help to everyone for translating between the doctors and staff and me. Without Emi this would have not worked, period!

I'm scheduled to return in 3 months to do a check-up on the cancer; make sure it hasn't returned.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike

Bonus shots!

 

Onsen Crazy in Wakayama (part 2)

The good times keep on coming! The next morning we checked out of the hotel and we were bussed to a port in Nachi Katsuura ( https://nachikan.jp/en/ ) where we would be boarding a water taxi to take us to the Hotel Urashima.

Once everyone was seated in the boat we got underway.

From the inside of the boat looking out it's all very nice and pleasant. However!!!

If one is on the outside looking at us coming alongside the landing dock at Hotel Urashima it's laughable! BTW, the hotel is on an island.

Hotel Urashima is an amazing place. 

The hotel's website http://www.hotelurashima.co.jp/

After we arrived we were given a quick briefing by the hotel staff on the hot springs  that were available to us and when they would be closed for cleaning. Most everyone in our group wanted to use the famous cave hot spring but we had to hurry because it would be closed for cleaning in less than an hour.

Inside the changing room of the cave hot spring. 

Photography is strictly prohibited in the bathing area. Somehow I accidently took this one picture while I was still standing in the changing room. This only shows a little bit of the cave. The actual inside area is huge and amazing. There are 5 different baths and a beautiful view of the ocean. I highly recommend this place; it's one of the best onsen I've ever visited (and I've visited a lot of them). 

As I left the cave the hotel cleaning staff had already put a sign in front of the entrance saying it was closed for cleaning.

With some free time before we departed the island I did a little walking around the hotel. This place is huge! Different sections of the hotel are connected by long corridors.

Getting into the Christmas spirit. 

Sadly we were only here for the morning and would be departing around noontime. I'd love to stay overnight here. I walked around the island waterfront to kill some time before departure.

Next we went back to the center of the port town to the Higashimuro district. This is one of those old districts that looks like it had seen better days but is still hanging on hoping for better days in the future. 

We were told by the tour guide that we needed to buy something for lunch to eat on the train. Yes, it was time to say goodbye to our beautiful tour bus and take an express train to Shin-Nagoya station. Anyway, we were only given 20 minutes to find a place to get lunch and be back at the train station. 

This is Kii-Katsura train station. 

The ticket gate at the station is on the second floor. A few of us took the stairs to the second floor; the rest of the group took the elevator (that took time). Eventually we all managed to gather at the gate and then we all went through and boarded the train. 

It's a nice train, very comfortable, big windows for sightseeing. The ride to Shin-Nagoya was long but the train followed the ocean coast for awhile and then ran through forests and rice fields; quite scenic!

It took a few hours but we finally arrived at Shin-Nagoya station. From this platform we will move to the Shinkansen Bullet train platform.

Our guide (the man in the orange and black coat) successfully managed to get us all moved from point "A" to point "B" without losing anyone. It was after 4:20 pm and our train would be departing at 4:49pm. So many of the people went off to buy Ekiben meals (box lunches sold in train stations) to eat on the train.

I stayed in place and watched our suitcase while Emi went off to get our Ekiben meals. This gave me a nice chance to take some pictures of the other Bullet trains as they came and went. 

It's getting close to our departure time. The guide hands out seating assignments and tries to get people to stand in a line for boarding the train. 

It was like herding cats! He eventually got us all in line and it was just in time...

Our train home has just arrived! This train is a super express with no stops between Shin-Nagoya and Shin-Yokohama; we'll be in Yokohama in a little over an hour!

All in all it was a fantastic trip - I had a great time!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike

Bonus shots!