Hospital-ity--Written Oct. 23

So today I got more than your normal experience in Japan. I finally had to go to the hospital and figure out what was wrong with me. As soon as we got back from the junior high, Harumi (our guide and interpreter) and I set off for the ER. She had called ahead and explained the situation, so they were ready for a non-Japanese speaking patient. The nurse first commented on my height, then asked Harumi a bunch of questions and Harumi asked me. Some of them were fairly personal and embarrassing (Ronnie, think of your favorite Scrubs song) , then she played a game of which pokes hurt worst. It turned out the pokes in my lower right side abdomen won the contest, so they all thought it might be my appendix! Yikes! Major surgery in a foreign country!
They did a CT scan, which involved a lot of pantomime on everyone’s part, and it turned out that they were wrong. Whew!! They said that my intestines were not working well, due to stress.
Really?
What stress have I been under lately??
And they gave me a powder to "balance out my intestines." I’m sure something was lost in the translation there. They told me to try to eat something with the powder, so I came back to the hotel and got a tiny carton of Hagen Daz out of the vending machine for dinner. I only ate about a third of it, but I downed the powder with a glass of water, then finally got to try the baths! But that’s another story…
I think I might just live through this experience, after all!