Thursday, July 28, 2005

The Results

I know, you've been waiting for the results of the biopsy for a few weeks longer than I have. But Kelsey complained and make a stink about me telling everyone that I was in the hospital via my blog, so even though that wasn't the case, I decided to wait a bit longer. What they pulled out of my neck was a bit of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, so after thinking it through for a bit, I bought a round trip ticket to Seattle, and left Thursday and arrived in Seattle a few hours before I left.

For the last three days, I've been waiting for my doctors here to get everything together. Ma had been searching for a doctor that speaks Japanese to translate my medical records, but was unsuccessful until we found out that the local doctor that I was seeing for a referral was a Japanese major in college and had lived in Osaka. So he translated the stuff that needed to be done and faxed it to the clinic that I'm going to.

Ai has to go home tomorrow morning, and hopefully, I will get into the clinic tomorrow or monday.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Weather Maps and Beer


You can, of course drink beer at any time of the year, but summer, when it's hot and muggy, is the best. So leave it to Japan to make the next logical connection: use beer to indicate weather conditions. This map on Yahoo!'s weather site shows apparently how much beer you will need at the end of a hot, muggy day. (Tokyo's currently at 4 beers, while Okinawa is the highest, at 5 beers.) They also offer other ways to gauge the weather, by UV rays , heat syndrome (heat stroke?), and sweat . Now you all need to call your local TV stations and ask them to provide such a helpful reference. You don't want to end up with too few beers on a killer day.

Insurance and Thailand

One thing I didn't tell last week was how much my hospital stay cost me. I thought that I wouldn't be much since the day that I had 3 blood tests, a CT Scan, X-ray and Ultrasound cost only $20, but it ended up costing me about $900. It turns out that the insurance wouldn't cover any of the hospital stay since I was in a two person room. If I was in a dormitory style cheapo bed, then they would have covered it. But when I was asked what kind of room I wanted, I said that I didn't have much money, so I wanted the cheapest they had, so I don't know what else I could have done. In addition, the handbook that they gave me when I signed up for insurance said nothing about not paying for hospitalization in the section called "Treatment not covered by insurance" It's kind of ridiculous that they will cover the cheapest room, but not any part of a more expensive room at all. I spent some time today pestering the health insurance guy at the city hall about it, but he didn't budge, so Ai's mom said she'd call for me. Apparently, she's good at stuff like that.

This huge expense is really bad because I'm going to Thailand in just over a week. I really can't afford it until after I get my paycheck for this month, but the problems is that I don't get this months pay until the day after I leave. Anyway, we've planned out our trip, and made hotel reservations for the nights that weren't covered by the travel agency, and Ai's very excited. I'm still working and stuff, so I haven't really had any time to think about it. My last day of work for summer is July 22nd.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Surgery!!!

This is me at the hospital! Why am I in the hospital? I have a papaya sized lump (that's a Brazilian sized papaya) in my chest. So I was in surgery yesterday afternoon to have part of the lymph in my neck removed. It felt like they were pulling a lot more out of that, but anyway, I'm fine now. I'm taking a day off work tomorrow, but I'll be back at work on Thursday. I'll hear what the stuff they pulled out was made of on the 15th.

Kyle's still here. He never really left my apartment because he couldn't find his way to the station, and yesterday it rained the whole time. So today when I got home from the hospital, Ai and I took him to Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku, then went out for dinner at a sushi place. We got him a ticket for the bullet train to Osaka tomorrow, so I'm taking him to Tokyo station in the morning.