November has always meant sickness...as far back as I can remember. Unsurprisingly (as if on cue), I got up on the morning of Wednesday, November 1st, (a bright and sunny day, free of any scheduled classes) feeling decidedly peaked and out of sorts. I immediately knew what was up. It's been almost a full year since I've been down with any kind of malady, so it was bound to happen. That feeling of malaise and detachment that takes hold when the encroaching virus has found its foothold, and stared to settle in for its term of physical residence. When I feel like that, the only thing I wanna do is go lie down; but, alas - t'was not to be.
About a month previous, my wife had decided to book a technician to come over to clean out our living room and bedroom air conditioners. It had been over five years since their last going overs; this was past due (the manufacturer generally recommends doing them every three). Our bad...but at almost ¥40,000 ($400) to have the pair done...it's easy to put off. Each one takes around 3 hours, so the service guy was basically here all day with his gear and hose apparatus thingies spraying and sucking the foulness and gunk out of the innards of each unit. It's amazing how much nastiness builds up inside these things. Towards the end of August, Mina noticed a musty, dank odour blowing out of the unit in the living room for the first couple of minutes after starting it up. I didn't pick up on it right away, but she insisted, and got me to stand right in front of the offending unit before switching it on, and, lo-and-behold - there it was. Like a cool breeze whistling through a dank, sour old armpit. Mold. Not a good thing, particularly for me, as I suffer from seasonal bouts of bronchial asthma.
Seven hours later, it was nearly 4pm, the cleaning ordeal was over, and I was ready to make a trip down the road to the local clinic to get some meds, and attempt to nip this burgeoning viral beast in the bud. I'm one of those people that tries to solve everything with medication. At the first sign of any possible issue, I'm off to the clinic to get loaded up with whatever they wanna try out on me. This is in stark contrast to my wife, the 'senior nurse's approach...which is decidedly more sensible. "Rest. Hydrate. Don't sit in the drafty side room fighting with people on Facebook. That's not resting. Lie down. On the bed. Under the blanket. Wait it out." Japan is probably the most medicated society in the world, too. People run to the clinic or hospital for absolutely everything, regardless of how minor...and they're basically not satisfied unless they come marching out with a huge bag of assorted pills, sprays, creams, drops, patches...whatever the doctor is handing out; the more, the better. Of course, the inherent dangers in this approach are pretty obvious, but it suits me fine. I have absolutely no patience. Medicate the shit out of me, and get me back on the road, a.s.a.p.
The dark, cold and wet Novembers of my childhood in Vancouver come to mind. Quarantined to my bedroom in the basement, like some medieval prisoner, lest I infect the younger kids, or miss any more school than absolutely necessary. Four or five days of this, listening to AM radio and reading comic books. It was torture. I hated the isolation. In those days I was a puker. Everything I picked up seemed to involve puking, and bizarre, surreal fever dreams...so there would always be a big, blue plastic bucket by the side of my bed, which I seemed to fill up without fail. Rarely was it just a simple sore throat or runny nose cold. My Mum couldn't figure out why I was such a prolific vomiter. We actually visited the family physician back in the day and queried about my predilection for barfing gagging, and general, all-round nauseousness. Unfortunately, this wasn't limited to when I was actually sick, either. It was something of a daily ritual. I'd get up in the morning, drink my juice, eat my toast or cornflakes and banana, go downstairs, puke, and walk to school. Or I'd just puke all the way down the laneway. After that, I'd feel somewhat better. A bit worse for wear...but somewhat better. Every single day. If I was nervous about anything...I'd start gagging. If I saw a turd shoot out of a dog's arse on my way home from school...I'd start gagging. If I saw someone else gagging...I'd start gagging. Anyways, when I was about 12, Mum finally recognized that I had some kind of issue, and took me in to get checked out. Our family doctor gave me the once over, and said that - at least physically - there was nothing wrong with me. He cracked it up to 'nerves'. That's it. No medicine. Nothing. Apparently, I was a fucking nervous wreck. Looking back, it was no wonder. My Mum wasn't the most mentally stable individual in the world, and since she had remarried and borne two brand spanking new children with step father, I had become a bit of an unwelcome third wheel on the scene. Between her 'cusp of hysteria' antics, and his fondness for corporal punishment for the slightest of infractions, I didn't know whether I was coming or going. I couldn't actually figure it out at the time - I guess I thought that it was normal, and that's how every family was, but hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. Kids are sensitive...and even if their heads can't quite suss out what's going on, their internal biologies most certainly can. So...I gagged and puked. Every single day. Then twice as much when I actually got sick. This continued for years and years, until well after my step father was no longer on the scene. In fact, until just a few years ago, I avoided breakfast like the Black Death. I just wasn't fond of force feeding and vomiting at the start of every day.
Anyways, the doctor at the local clinic gave me a quick going over, noticed a rumble in my chest, looked down my throat, and at my eyes, and scribbled out a prescription for three days of steroids, five days of antibiotics, and orders to curtail my running routine for the duration. Have I mentioned that the English teaching business has been a bit slow lately? Well, fortunately I had some downtime...four days, to be precise...so I set about following the doctor and resident 'senior nurse's advice, and defeating my body's unwelcome new resident. My lovely wife is rarely, if ever wrong. One day, I will learn to listen. Promise. To make a long story short, it's thirteen days later, and despite my best efforts to follow orders, I'm still not feeling 100% tip-top. The steroids and antibiotics did absolutely nothing. In fact, at the five day mark (when things should have been turning the corner) I was actually feeling shittier than I had at the outset. A week later and I feel like the outer edges of wellness are just now starting to re-emerge...though my energy level is still only 70-80% normal. That seems to be the nature of this particular beast. It will sap your very life's essence. All last week I felt like I had run three triathalons through a Florida swamp in a lead tuxedo and shitty diapers. Then last Tuesday, my wife came home looking a little peaked...a full week in for her, and she's back to work after bailing on yesterday. She never succumbs to these things, either. It seems that the malaise has her in its clutches. No energy. No appetite. Listless. Hopefully she'll emerge a bit faster than I am. She seemed marginally more spritely this morning. On the bright side, hopefully once we both kick this, that'll be it until at least next year...but with her working at the hospital, and me teaching little kids (and doing a class at the hospital), dodging the viral bullets at this time of year can be the real trick.
At that, it's already rearing up on mid-November...and all that Christmas and New Year's bullshit is already upon us. More on the joys of this year's holiday season in Olde Nagoyand in the December installment. Until then, wear your surgical masks, wash your friggin' hands, and remember..."No matter where you go, there you are".
