Lost in Ogawa

Winter Sucks! In Japan that is. I’ve been in a foul and stressful mood for the past two weeks and I have every right to be. Last winter it was the flu. This year so far, it has been a throat infection with antibiotics and cough medications for a week. Following right after and not wasting any time at all, aches and pains all over my body. Currently, my body is in the sh*ts! My face is also breaking out reminding me of the good old stressful college days…ahh….the great memories of midterms and finals. Speaking of pain, I have no idea why my tail bone hurts?! I just know I can’t sit on hard ground or even on the ground with a cushion for long periods of time. I can’t even sleep on my back because in the morning I get shooting pains up my back. However, the injury, if you can even call it that, at this very moment is my left knee. It’s been swollen for about two weeks now and it’s painful when I walk on it or even bend my leg for that matter. I can’t bend my leg past 90 degrees. Bending the knee already causes a great deal of tension on the knee. The only time where the knee was “deflated” for about a day was when I went to see a doctor last Saturday. He took a fat syringe with a needle longer than the length of my fingers and jabbed it into my knee and sucked out all the fluid that was causing the swelling. Although it was painful as hell, it was cool to see my yellow colored urine looking joint fluid. The doc explained to me that normal joint fluid should be clear. Yellow indicates there was inflammation somewhere. He asked me how my knee became this way and I have no clue whatsoever. One day I woke up and I had a funny feeling when I started walking and it got worse! The doc said to wait another week and if it swells again, maybe an MRI will be in order. Well, it’s the second week and it’s swelled up again. Looking forward to having a needle stuck into my knee again, woohoo! It’s not so much the walking is bothering me but also it’s affecting life. Just putting on my underwear, my pants, and my shoes takes longer than usual. I have no motivation to move around in my apt. or do any housework. I just sit on my bed and watch TV and go to sleep. Dishes are left unwashed for days and laundry is left unfolded. Papers and books are lying all over waiting to be organized and the floor needs a good vacuuming. The doctor did mention that the swelling of the knees could be due to a condition called “Gout.” I did some research online and discovered that I either have some type of Arthritis or Gout. Arthritis seems a bit far fetch because of the age issue so Gout seems to be a good candidate except I don’t match all the symptoms exactly. I read that if I do have Gout, one of the causes could be over consumption of alcohol, especially beer. Something in beer or alcohol is not being broken down in the body therefore causing a buildup of “uric acid” (something bad) causing joints to swell. Once I read that, I vowed to myself to abstain from drinking alcohol for a week. It’s a bad week to do so because my neighbor/friend just so happen has his pal from the States visiting and when we hang out and do stuff, alcohol is always involved. The mood is weird when everybody else is drinking and I’m not so I’ve been turning down invites to go have fun. I did go bowling with them (bowling ally 5 mins. from my place, remember? And yes, we drink while we bowl!) but it was a very stupid thing I did. It’s not the fact that I wasn’t drinking but I went bowling with a swelled up knee. Especially when that is the knee you put all your weight on when you release the bowling ball. If you’re a right hander, simulate a bowling movement and see where your left leg ends up. By the 5th frame, I was finishing on my right knee, see if you can do that! Anyway if my knee doesn’t get any better soon, winter vacation won’t look so happy and I can kiss my snowboarding season goodbye. Oh, and a spot on my neck is really sore too. Tilting my head to the back and to one side hurts like a bi*tch. That’s what I get for sleeping in weird positions! Ok, time to take pain killers and go to bed…..I am looking forward to a pain-free day sometime soon…

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 12:21 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.