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!