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On a very rainy Sunday evening at around 7:00pm I was hit by a car while crossing the street on my bicycle. I had a green light and by the time I realized this car wasn’t planning to stop, it was too late. I braced myself for the impact and tried to make sure I went over the hood rather than under the car, which probably would have killed me.

The next few seconds were a bit of a blur. I realized that I had survived the collision, but now I had to try to figure out how serious it was. I had broken the windshield of the car with my shoulder and head (though my shoulder took most of the impact). The glass was shatterproof so that it did not cut me badly, though a few shards still ended up in my skin. My leg had hit the hood and I more or less rolled off the car where I landed on my arm. At least that’s what I have been able to piece together looking at my main injuries, the actual event happened very fast and as I said, it’s kind of fuzzy in my memory.

I felt relieved that right after the crash I could stand up on my own power. Due to the shock I didn’t really feel any pain yet but I knew I had been hit pretty hard. I moved the remains of my bicycle to the side of the road. Strangely enough I remembered to lock it. At this point the driver of the car, who looked about 20 years old, checked to see how I was doing. At the time I wasn’t mad, I also wasn’t in a lot of pain but I was rather concerned that the vision from my left eye was not normal. I realized I must have hit my head pretty hard and I was very concerned that I might have a concussion or something.

Now at this point I probably should have called the police so they could survey the scene of the accident. But all I was thinking at the moment was that I needed to get to the hospital. And this man who just hit me was the only one I could talk to (other cars just kept going by). I said I needed to go to the hospital (In my broken Japanese). I thought he would call an ambulance or something, but instead he escorted me to the car that had just knocked me down. Then, broken windshield and all, he drove me to the worst hospital I have even been to.

OK, now that last sentence didn’t sound very fair. I am sure once I understand the medical system in Japan, they way I was treated will make a lot more sense. But right now all I can go on is how I felt at the time and this hospital, to me, was an exercise in stupidity. I should explain at this point that hospitals in Japan are very specialized. There are hospitals for broken bones and others for brain conditions others for the heart, etc. There is no general-purpose hospital (or at least not in my town). The hospital the driver brought me to, was a skin and bone place. This is Japan, the land of amazing service but I got the worst service I have ever received at this particular hospital. Let me set the stage (and change for a moment to present-tense):

I am limping into a hospital, holding my head, bleeding and dripping wet from the rain. I go to the counter and explain as best as I can that I have been hit by a car. I relay that my head hurts and my vision is impaired. For this the receptionist gives me a form to fill out that is of course entirely in Japanese. Now I can’t fault the guy for giving me a Japanese form, this is after all, Japan. And normally I don’t have a problem filling out a form like this because after two years living here I am fairly familiar with how to complete a Japanese form. However, my hand is bleeding all over this paper and I can’t read what I am writing because my left eye feels like it is underwater. I tell him this and give him my ID card and insurance card with all the information that will be required for the form. He reluctantly takes my cards, gestures to a seat near the TV and disappears.

I honestly thought he had gone away to get some help for me, someone to stop my bleeding and explain to me why my left eye wasn’t working. Nope. For 5 minutes nothing happens. Well, not exactly nothing, someone scored a goal in the World Cup game on the lounge TV and I called Misako and calmly explained the accident. But what didn’t happen was anyone coming to dress my wounds or examine me in any way whatsoever.

Another 5 minutes pass. Nothing. The guy, let’s call him “Mr. Driver”, is going outside to make a call. Maybe he is calling the police, perhaps his family or his insurance agent. I’m really not sure and at the moment and I don’t care much, I just want someone to care that I have just been in an accident. By “care” I mean, stop me from staining the waiting room couch with my still-flowing blood.

After being there for 20 minutes Misako’s father arrived. He told me that I now needed to go to the “brain hospital”. I went into his car and we were off to the next hospital. Misako also met up with me at this point and I felt very relived because I finally had someone to talk for me. What I was not relived about is that it had been more than 30 minutes since the accident and still no one had checked me over. During the drive to the second hospital I checked my vision and saw, to my great relief that it was starting to return to normal.

When we arrived at the “brain hospital” around 8:00pm everything was closed and locked up. The lights were off and no one was around. A phone call brought some emergency room people down. These staff were much nicer to me. At first they wanted me to fill out a form like the first place, but once they saw me up close they offered to do it for me and offered me a place to sit down. A few minutes later I was in a CT scanner having my brain checked out. As I waited for the scan to be developed, Mr. Driver’s parents arrived. They bowed to me and apologized. Mr. Driver himself seemed to be in kind of a stunned silence. I don’t blame him, I was thinking “What would I say to the guy I just hit with my car?”

The scans arrived and a very nice English-speaking doctor explained them to me. It seems that apart from a cartoonishly large bump (that looked as if half a softball had been glued to my head) I was fine. They he looked at me. Really looked at me, and saw that I was still bleeding. He said “They told me you are at the other hospital before you came here. Hasn’t anyone checked you over yet?” I told him that he was the first. He gave a shocked look then he reached into a drawer and produced some gauze, antiseptic and bandages. Even though he is a doctor specializing in the brain and this is clearly not his department, he patched me up and I was grateful for it. He also recommended that I see an eye doctor about the vision problem I had earlier. He also told me that for the next 24 hours I would need to keep a close eye on my condition. If I threw up or had extreme pain in my head, I was to come back immediately.

While I waited for them to file my paperwork, I called 2 of the other teachers at my school. I tried to explain what had happened without shocking them too much. This proved hard. Both of them were very worried. Between the two of them they reported my accident to all of the higher-ups at my school and at the board of education. This saved me a lot of calls and I am very thankful to them. It was obvious that I was not going to work on Monday.

I went to sleep early that night, very sore, but very thankful to be alive. The next morning the calls started coming in around 7:00am. I think just about everyone in my city had heard about the accident by then and they all wanted to call me early in the morning. I had calls from teachers, administrators, the vice-mayor, my supervision, and countless others. And it is so great to know that so many people care about you. It is honestly heartwarming, but I wanted to sleep so badly! After the first 5 or so calls I was able to go back to sleep but beyond that, I was up and I might as well stay up.

Misako took a day off of work and stayed with me all day on Monday. She was my own personal Florence Nightingale. She not only fed me and kept me company but also did my laundry and washed the dishes while I rested. I am also very grateful to her and her family for helping with my Japanese insurance claims, something I have had the fortune to not have to know about until now. Since I had the right of way during the accident, 100% of my medical bills would be paid for, but I had to know where to get the receipts and how to file them. Misako’s family helped me so much in this way.

The first place we went was the eye hospital. This was very similar to an eye doctor in America with a few minor changes. First of all it is less personal. In America each person has his or her own examination room. Here there is just one large open room with all the machines and people being shuffled from one station to the next. Frankly I thought it was a pretty efficient use of the available staff and space. Though they used the same machines and did the same tests that my Western eye doctor does, it went much faster. Also the eye charts they use are a bit different. Here is a Landolt C Test similar to the ones they use in Japan.

By this time I no longer had any problems with my eyes and all my tests came out fine. I was happy to hear that. And silly me, I though this would be my last doctor’s visit. I went back to my apartment to get some sleep. That was also not meant to be. First the parents of Mr. Driver showed up to offer me an “Im-sorry-our-son-hit-you-with-the-car cake”. Well actually it was just a normal cake, but since it was not my birthday or Christmas, that was obviously the meaning behind it. Here is the cake, there was no note attached to it, so I made one:

Soon after they left, my supervisor showed up to pay his respects. I was very glad that Misako had been cleaning a bit, but my place still was not ready for company. Next time I get hit by a car I will do so when my apartment is in better shape. He told me that I should go to that first (read: horrible) bone and skin hospital again to have an x-ray. I thought it was unnecessary but with Misako’s urging, I agreed that it couldn’t hurt. It was also decided that it would be good for me to take another day off of work. I still had a pretty bad headache and while I realized that I could work I know that it would not be very enjoyable to do so. I took one of my remaining vacation days and decided not to set my alarm for the next morning.

Of course I ended up having to set it anyway because I had to get to the bone and skin hospital before 10:30am (when Misako had to be at work). So at about 9:00 she picked me up and we went to a place I had decided too boycott just the day before.

This hospital was really not so bad the second time. The couch where I had bled had been cleaned the receptionist had a much better personality. Also, when you are not wondering if you have severe head trauma, it is much easier to wait for a little while. A doctor came to take me for some x-rays. I knew I would need one for my shoulder, which was sore, but they actually took 6 pictures. They took one of my shoulder and they also took shots anywhere that was bruised.

Here is where the embarrassing part comes in. You see, I have a pair of American flag boxer shorts. I bought them as a joke before leaving America and will sometimes were them. Of course no one ever sees them. That is until Tuesday. I was told I was going to have an x-ray of my shoulder so I never even thought, “should I change my boxer shorts to something a bit less silly?” But of course they wanted some shots of my leg as well so I had to expose old glory for the staff of the hospital, what is interesting is that during my x-rays, people kept coming into the x-ray room “running errands”, or as I saw it, word was getting around the hospital and everyone wanted to my underpants. A few embarrassing moments later, the x-rays were done. No broken bones anywhere. An interesting note is that when they found out that this was all being covered by insurance the doctor made a suggestion that I come back once a day for the next 5 days, just to be on the safe side. You know, in case one of those bones decides to fracture later.

Misako had to go to work so she dropped me off at my apartment. My supervisors had decided that after lunch they would come and take me to the brain hospital again. I didn’t really understand the need for another CT scan, but I realized these people have my best interests at heart, so I agreed. After a short nap, I was off to a hospital for I believe the 5th time in 3 days. I hope they have a point card or something so next time I get injured it’s free.

I was at this hospital for 3 hours. Most of it was spent in the waiting room. When I first arrived I talked with the English-speaking doctor who had been so nice to me the night of the accident. First he asked my why I was back. Was the headache getting worse? Did something happen? I explained to him that I was feeling much better but that I had been advised to get another scan. I asked him “Do you think this is necessary?” he said he didn’t think I really needed one (that has to be a first, a doctor not advising a procedure). So he asked if I wanted to do it. I pointed to my supervisors and said, “these guys are sort of in charge and they want me to have one”.

The doctor understood that they were very concerned about me and he then offered to put everyone’s mind at ease. He said “Do you want to do an MRI scan then?” I have to admit that before this time I really didn’t know what the difference between a CT scan and an MRI scan was. The doctor explained to me that a MRI was more thorough, that it took longer and that it was very noisy. I said that that was fine because if I had the very detailed scan it might be the last one I have to take.

I was escorted into a little room and was told to remove all my clothes except my underwear. Yup, that’s right, I was still wearing the very patriotic shorts. You know, I had the opportunity to change when I was home, but I thought, “This is a hospital dealing with the brain, why would I have to undress?” The reason for this is of course that I was going to be bodily inserted into this huge machine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRI They gave me earplugs because it is in fact very noisy. If I were claustrophobic this would be a major problem as I had my arms and legs strapped down and was inserted into this thin chamber. Of course just as my arms were rendered immobile I realized that my nose itched. I soon forgot about this and strangely enough the rhythmic pounding of the machine wound up lulling me to sleep. I was in the machine for about 20 minutes and asleep for most of it.

After another stay in the waiting room the scans were ready. Nothing wrong. Now with everyone’s minds at ease I could go back to work the next day. By taxi, since I no longer had a working bicycle.

I am very grateful to my friends and co-workers in Japan for helping me through this. The system is still a bit of a mystery to me and it helped to have someone guide me through it. In the next few days I will also need that same help in figuring out the ongoing wonders of the insurance claim system. All in all it is something bad that happened to me but it also showed me a lot of good in people, some odd things about the system and a better overall appreciation of how good it is to be alive and healthy. I just hope in the future I can find a less painful way to gain new experiences.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 1st, 2006 at 11:59 am and is filed under Rant, Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.