How's it going? My name is Micaela.
And this week has been rough.
This week I came down with something that I think was probably food poisoning? And it
was...
You know how... If you've had.. You know.
But I managed to survive and things are looking a little bit better now, so I want to give
a shout out to some of the things that have saved my life:
Tropicana Essentials~
These weird multivitamin energy jelly drinks that I'm not even sure what the brand name
is..Is it IN??
The painkiller equivalent that helped me forget I had a fever and chills.
And finally, "Netsusama Sheets". I can't recommend these enough, these are so good for when you
have a headache.
I will show you to use them right now.
They're like these adhesive cooling sheets, they're so good. And like, my eyes get tired,
when I'm on the computer for too long or doing too much editing work, and this stuff, these
are just like miracle workers cause they just cool everything down.
When I actually have a fever, I actually put one on my forehead, and another on the back
of my neck, to like cool my body down and it feels so nice, I love these so much.
But you know being sick this week was another interesting "cross cultural" examination,
and I'll tell you why.
As you know, I have a boyfriend, named Tatsu, who takes care of me when I'm sick because
he's wonderful!
We got into an argument where he was like, "Why don't you ever go to the hospital as
soon as you feel bad?"
And I was like, "WHY DO JAPANESE PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL THE SECOND THEY
FEEL BAD!?"
And it was this one thing where we were arguing back and forth, you see, Japanese people have
a tendency to go to the hospital for EVERYTHING. Like, literally, everything. The second they
think that they're getting sick they're like, "Oh, you'd better go to the hospital!"
My boyfriend Tatsu he would say, he's like, "Why aren't you going to the hospital? You
won't get better if you don't go to the hospital! You need to go to the hospital"
And I was like "Just let me sleep. Just let me sleep this off."
And I'm pretty sure in North America, we don't go to the doctor for the common cold, and
I think especially in America, cause health care costs money, but in Canada, where health
care is provided, the thing is, everyone's at the clinic anyway. Everyone goes to the
clinic, everyone goes to the hospital, everyone goes to emergency, even if it's not an emergency,
because they can.
To prevent, you know, a bunch of people waiting at the hospital, waiting at the clinic, to
be seen when they don't really need to be seen, when they just should be at home resting,
I grew up under the general rule that the common cold will generally fix itself in three
days, if you rest and take care of yourself, and if it doesn't, then you can go to the
doctor. If it's NOT the common cold, you can go to the doctor.
I generally wait until the third day of being sick and if I'm not on my way out, then yeah
I need to go to the doctor and figure out what's wrong.
But if I'm feeling better, usually it's just one more day and I'm good!
Luckily it was something that kind of passed through my whole system in two days, and nobody
died, and la de da, everything is good.
I think another reason why I have a general aversion to going to the doctor in Japan,
is just because it can be really complicated depending on what your problem is.
If you need medicine to cure a common sickness, you go to a "Naika", which is an "Internal
Medicine" doctor. They will specialize in stuff including colds, bacterial, viral infections,
and so on..
But if you're like me and you're asthmatic, then you have to go to a "Kokyukika" in order
to get the proper medication that you need.
Other common clinics inlcude, "Hifuka", which is for rashes or any skin problems
you might have.
If you're coming from overseas and have sort of depressive disorder,
and you need to get more medication then you need to go to a "seishinka".
And if you're like me and you're a lady with a bunch of lady bits
and sometimes those lady bits need routine checkups and maitenence then you need to go to a
"fujinka" which is a gynecologist.
Basically, if you're someone who has a lot of different needs,
you end up seeing a lot of different doctors, instead of seeing the same doctor
over the years.
which, is kind of, I dunno, frustrating because,
you end up seeing a bunch of different doctors for different ailments,
and they're all kind of choosing medications and trying to deal with your health problems,
without really like, knowing each other.
and I feel like that can be kind of dangerous, or something, I don't know.
Is this distracting? Cause this, ah, it feels so good.
So yeah, it all seems like a bit of a hassle, right now
but the truth is that if you're planning on living in Japan for a long time, it's probably
a good idea to get these connections sorted out sooner or later
I think when you're young you can kind of afford to be lazy because you're still healthy
and you have fairly minor health issues, but as you get older, those health issues are going
to get bigger and you're going to need to know who to call when something goes bad
And it's always better to be safe than sorry.
And I would definitely not recommend trying to cure something by yourself
if it persists for more than two or three days.
because then it could be very very dangerous!
If you are feeling a bit under the weather but you're not really ready to see a doctor about it,
you can try over-the-counter medication by going to a major drugstore.
Most drug stores will have one pharmacist on hand during business hours,
and usually they go home around like 6pm or 5pm, so you have to get there during the day,
but if you can talk to them and kind of explain what your symptoms are
they'll help you find the right over-the-counter medication, to help deal with whatever you're experiencing
and that's also fairly cheap.
And if that can help you get through whatever it is that's bothering you
then that is great. It probably saves you a little bit of time and money.
I definitely recommend Bufferin, if you have a headache or fever, cause this thing fixed me so fast!
I'm gunna include a ton of links in the description
with proper URLs, so they are not broken,
that will hopefully help point you in the right direction of a proper clinic that can help you
or finding the right over-the-counter medicine that need from a pharmacist or pharmacy
here in Japan.
Yay! Let's be "genki" (healthy) together!
Thank you for watching!
Talk to you soon, bye!