Would this make you feel better?

After biking home from elementary school on Monday, I barely had the energy to climb the stairs to my apt. Oh no, my cold like symptoms picked up at last week's Mid-Year Seminar in the building that felt like a meat locker had finally caught up to me. So I stayed home Tuesday and the lovely Naoko-sensei took me to see her doctor. I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about 40 years until an 8 year old girl and her mom walked in just before my name was called.

When I saw the doctor, he looked at me, at the chart the nurse had prepared and back at me and started to chuckle. The nurse had put 男 (male) instead of 女(female) on my chart by mistake. Although sometimes elementary classes I have never taught before come to the teacher's room looking for a male teacher. Hmmmm. Then the doctor, who kind of looks like a Japanese Tom Selleck (maybe it was just the mustache) asked some questions and looked at my tonsils (which he quickly diagnosed as "dekkai" or large) and wrote me four perscriptions to be filled at the pharmacy next door. In Japan, they appear to only make pills for one symptom, so if you have multiple symptoms as one often does with a cold, you get a whole cocktail of drugs to take in various combinations at different times of the day. I have two pills that are to be taken after each meal, a package of throat tablets and way too many packs of purple powder which are to be added to water and gargled 4 times a day. When mixed with water, it looks like this:


It doesn't smell or have a taste, and I am not supposed to swallow it, but still, gargling purple water 4 times a day really is not that appetizing. I suppose it's working, as I am feeling much better tonight than I was last night. Still not 100%, but better than even this morning, which is a good sign, and somewhat of a relief considering that I basically slept all day--in bed, on the tiny couch, and later outside in the sun. Hopefully, I will sleep better tonight than I did last night with my dreams about crashing helicopters and invading martians. But first, I have to do my 4th gargle of the day...