Seeing a Japanese Doctor

Every year at about this time, I get a sinus infection. It's the pollen in the air, it’s my allergies, it’s a fact of life…whatever. Unfortunately, seeing as I am not at home where I can pop over to the nearest pharmacy and load up on Sinus/Allergy meds, I have to make due with what I have: a lot of EmergenC and Advil (usually, they work as my cure-alls). Of course, in the case of a sinus infection neither a Vitamin booster nor acetimetiphin will help me very much. So I braved seeing a Japanese doctor the other day. Beyond the obvious language barrier (it was really more a game of medical charades although I did have an electronic dictionary/translator) the whole incident will go down in history as possibly the second worst medical experience in my life. (the first being the time I went to the Mexican doctor and he misdiagnosed me with a heart defect and told me I would die…actually now that I think of it, there was a language barrier going on that day too.) I had a really bad sore throat, which was caused by head congestion/drainage (you don’t need more details than that) the doctor couldn’t understand what I meant by congestion (especially since I appeared to be breathing okay) so he diagnosed me with acute tonsillitis (which I have had numerous times) so I asked him for penicillin…I think he said that Japan does not have penicillin, because he seemed shocked that I would ask for it. So I asked for amoxicillin, again he said no….instead he asked me if I would like to get a blood test. I was like, “no, just give me the antibiotics so I can get back to school to teach my 4th period class”….he followed this with, “how do you feel about suppositories?” I just laughed and said, “Da me!!!”(which essentially means NO WAY in hell!!) Keep in mind this whole conversation is going on with gestures, AND a crew of 4 nurses standing around on the sidelines (I believe they were there hoping to get a view of the freaky foreigner naked….which explains why they all started giggling when the doctor lifted my shirt to listen to my heart.) In the end, I was given a supply of antibiotics, cough drops, mouthwash, and the Japanese form of Tylenol. All for the great low price of $20 (which included semi-entertaining, yet freakishly hellish doctor appointment). The whole experience was cheaper than Kaiser and yet equally as ineffective.