Weeks 6 and 7

The Japan-wide holiday, Golden Week, started for me on Friday of the fifth week. I went, of course, to Obihiro. However, that week didn't really turn out all that well. First, we had to spend three days just making some basic arrangements with Tomomi regarding the apartment and her settling down in Obihiro - going around various companies, buying furniture and so on. Nothing exciting, really, but I didn't mind too much about it. What I did mind, however, was that I got a stomach ache on Wednesday and I still had it on the day after. On Friday morning, I started to vomit and couldn't hold anything inside, not even water.

During the rest of the week, I went to two doctors, both of which gave me different kinds of medicine and contradicted each other. The doctor I went to see on Sunday put me on infusion since my stomach wouldn't just stop hurting. It was not any mild pain, even - I couldn't sleep at all, so we actually went to a small clinic in the middle of the night. Afterward, I didn't feel any pain that night, but it came back on Monday.

I didn't go to school at all on Tuesday since I only came back around 8 p.m. from Obihiro. I was afraid to go to the bus on Monday because I felt like having a diarrhea attack, so I just watched TV all day instead, being too tired to do anything else.

Every time I ate during the sickness, I got the shivers and I lost weight a couple of kilos because of not being able to eat anything. It was the same thing with drinking, too, so I was really thirsty and hungry at some times, but at least I didn't hurt so badly. On Wednesday, 9th of May, I went to a Kitami hospital too with two men from the International Student Center. They just sat in the same room with the doctor, listening to everything I told him, not really minding about the doctor-patient relationship which could be argued to be sort of private, at least most of the time. Not in Kitami, no sir - the boss's got to know every detail too.

In any case, what the English-speaking doctor in Kitami prescribed me seemed to work, because the next day I was feeling much better already, marking the first day I could eat normally without having to just stop because of the hurting. I had been like that for six days though, so it was really about time. As of writing this, I still don't feel all that sharp but recovering from this kind of illness takes more time than just a day or two.

So, the vacation was really ruined, but I don't personally mind too much about it. Just being here every week is vacation by itself, since I'm not really doing all that much on any given day.