It's Typical, Never An MRI And Then Two Come Along At Once

First off, Keiko got her results back from the MRI. She might have weak anaemia but apart from that, everything's fine.

However, last Friday I arrived back home and Bruce told me Tom had been taken to hospital. I decided that I wasn't going to write about either of them, as they weren't particularly important parts to my time here, but this is a worthwhile story.

A bit about Tom: he is a 28 year old Scottish guy who looks like a ginger Hagrid from Harry Potter and sounds every bit as indecipherable as him; no idea what the students must think. He's a very inhibited and strange person; if we go out, he'll sit in the corner facing away from everyone. Crazily, he only ventured into Tokyo after being here six months. He's very stubborn and if you suggest something, he will do the opposite. Which is up to him, but when it's a case of asking him to keep his door or window closed in Summer because the mosquitoes were driving Bruce and I crazy, he opened it more. He sits in the house on his days off watching old movies and eating Cup Noodles. He has had a cough for the last four months, and eventually I bought him medicine from the pharmacy and made him take it. And, if there needs to be an and, he joined the gym, went twice and then didn't go for five months after; each month costing him £50 but because we told him to cancel his contract, he refused to, saying he would once his cough became better. Which was never. Sounds like a top guy, I know.

Apparently, he woke up one afternoon on his day off, like normal, set for a fun-filled day of movies and Soup Noodles, and his back suddenly went. He crawled across the floor, almost passing out and phoned the ambulance. 3 men came but, due to the size of him, it took 4 more to carry him on a stretcher to the ambulance.

It appears that a disc deteriorated and pushed into his spinal cord, temporarily paralysing him. He had to stay in hospital for a week, only finding out which hospital and where it was when Bruce and I asked him. He decided not to tell his parents, although I can to some extent agree with him on that one.

According to the doctors, he'll be fine after a week of recovery and some rehab, but I'm not sure. I'm not an expert so have no idea why this happened, but I think you can assume that his lifestyle didn't help.

I don't think he'll be able to sit down properly in a cubicle for 8 lessons a day, and I think he's a bit in denial that he may have to go back to Scotland.

I visited him on Sunday in a hospital that could've been the set for House On Haunted Hill; you enter on the 4th floor. Poor guy was placed on the death ward, there being the only room for him. I felt bad for him as he was so bored and frustrated that I stayed for about an hour and a half; the longest we'd ever spent talking together. I brought his iPod which was a real blessing considering the men either side of him were constantly coughing, and a nurse had to drain out the liquid in their lungs every 10 or so minutes. A really disturbing noise.

Still, the silver lining was that he got a sponge bath from a cute nurse and politely accepted when she asked if he wanted his "pehniss" cleaned. Tom told me, with a sparkle in his eye, that she gave it a good scrub, both inside and outside. Read that as you will.

He comes home tomorrow. I do feel sorry for him, but my sympathy is going to depend on if he sorts himself out.

The saddest thing about it all is that only Bruce and I visited him. I was going to go again because he was so bored, but Bruce managed to persuade a few other people to go. I guess in this situation, the amount of people that visit you in hospital is a good indication of your success living in a foreign country and knowing a good 3/400 students. I'd hope a few more than two would want to stop by if I was there.

Oh, and Keiko and Tom both said the MRI was just like the movies; incredibly claustrophobic and noisy. When asked if she had any questions, the machine was turned on and even though Keiko tried to get the nurse's attention, she failed to through the racket.