Saturday, March 26, 2016
Escape from the Snow World hr565
The mountain region in Japan where I live is covered with seven to ten
feet of snow every winter. My town is in a close area with mountains in
all directions. Those mountains turn into tall white walls in winter.
Deep snow lies beneath, white walls stand around, and snowflakes
constantly cover the sky above. It gives me a sense of being contained
in a white box. As winter deepens, I begin to feel claustrophobia and
suffocating. For that reason, I take a trip to the snow-free region and
stay there for a few days every winter. I stayed at a hotel near Narita
Airport and one near Tokyo Disneyland this winter because they became
bargain prices by using my accumulated points of the hotel chain’s
loyalty program that I had gained with a trip to Montreal. Since I was
entitled to use a pool and a sauna for free at the hotel near the
airport, I brought my new swimsuit that had been sleeping in the back of
my drawer for more than ten years and looked out-dated even though it
hadn’t been worn. Right after I checked in, I rushed into the pool. As I
was swimming watching a plane flying over me through the round glass
ceiling, I remembered how pleasant swimming was. I used to swim in the
pool at the gym a couple of days a week until about ten years ago. I
would care about my health and stamina so much, but I have gradually
become a night owl and put on weight. I decided to take this opportunity
to restart my health-conscious life. Next morning, while almost every
part of my body was aching, I had breakfast at the buffet restaurant in
the hotel. Most guests were from foreign countries because the hotel was
close to the airport. I felt as if I was eating abroad and it cost a
minimum to take an imaginary overseas trip. After I stuffed a whole
day’s amount of food into my stomach by eating for two hours there, I
left for an outlet mall near the hotel. I usually enjoy strolling around
a mall and looking for a bargain price, but I returned to the hotel
quite early this time in order to swim in the evening. Before I checked
out next morning, I went back to the pool again. Then I moved to the
hotel near Tokyo Disneyland and found that the pool there was free too. I
ended up swimming four times during this four-day trip. Although I was
supposed to be healthier when I came home, I started coughing next day
and it didn’t stop. Whether this trip was effective or not was now
questionable. Did I catch a cold at a warmer place where I bothered to
travel to get away from my cold town? Besides, my region has had
unusually little snow this winter and neither the ground nor the
mountains are all white. I can’t tell what I took that trip for after
all…
Labels:
bargain,
claustrophobia,
gym,
health,
hotel,
Japan,
Narita Airport,
night owl,
outlet mall,
pool,
snow,
stamina,
swimming,
Tokyo Disneyland,
travel,
trip,
winter
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Vertigo hr564
When I woke up in the morning and sit up on the bed, my room whirled
before my eyes. Anxiety was what I felt first thing in the morning. I
wondered if I had a serious illness, if I was developing a brain tumor,
if my autonomic nerve was damaged and if I couldn’t live a healthy life
any longer. I was swallowed up by the waves of all kinds of negative
thoughts. It was how I started a brand-new day and I had been in this
mess for over a week. I sometimes feel dizzy but vertigo rarely happens
to me. It occurred only three times to the best of my memory. The first
time was when I was fourteen and dieting solely on watermelon. I had
eaten nothing but watermelon for three days and had vertigo in the
morning of the fourth day. The diet ended there and my weight rebounded,
as is the way with dieting. The second time was about two years ago
when I continued lack of sleep for years to keep religiously my daily
routine of taking an early morning spa. I had a massive attack of
vertigo in the middle of the night and scribbled an instant will because
I believed I was dying. And this recent week-long dizziness was the
third time. Since it has become my mantra that “there’s always an answer
on the Internet,” I looked it up online. Most websites gave lengthy
negative possibilities of serious illnesses that threw readers down into
the depths of anxiety. They concluded that dizzy spells could lead to
complete deafness or death. Those pieces of information weren’t what I
was looking for. I wanted to know how to cure. I kept searching for
remedy, but all ‘How to Cure’ sections were the same; Go see a doctor.
Do they think we don’t come up with that idea until we look up on the
Internet? I wouldn’t have been online if I had decided to see a doctor
in the first place. The point was, I was on the net not to see a doctor.
I learned from my experience that going to the doctor would do more
harm than good in most cases. When I see a doctor, I need to get up
early in the morning, wait for a long time at the hospital for my turn
while being exposed to various viruses of other patients, go through all
kinds of medical examination, get sucked my blood, take numerous kinds
of medicine, get more ill by the medicine’s side effects and feel more
stress and anxiety. I don’t trust especially clinics and hospitals in
Japan. I once went to the dentist for a root canal. Although the
treatment was supposed to be done in one visit, the doctor divided it
into four extremely short visits. On the last visit when the treatment
was all done, the doctor told me to make another appointment because he
found a cavity in my back tooth. As I didn’t notice it and it didn’t
hurt at all, I said that I didn’t want the treatment and wouldn’t come.
Then he told me, rather threatened me, that even if it didn’t hurt,
leaving a cavity would be catastrophic. He added, “A cavity is cancer.” I
was deeply intimidated by the sound of ‘cancer’, but still kept cool
enough to judge that a cavity was quite different from cancer. I never
went there again. Since I had no intention to go to the doctor this time
as well, I looked up my dizziness further on the Internet. I came
across one US website that finally said about the cure for my symptoms.
It illustrated how to move my head to stop vertigo and it cured my
week-long dizzy spells instantly with one simple try. I had a pleasant
morning without vertigo at last. Internet solved my problem yet again,
big time. I read on about what caused it after all and the site said
stress. I don’t know any illness which causes don’t include stress. I
don’t know how to live without stress either…
Labels:
anxiety,
autonomic nerve,
brain tumor,
cure,
deafness,
death,
dentist,
dizziness,
dizzy spell,
hospital,
illness,
Japan,
Life,
mantra,
remedy,
stress,
vertigo,
watermelon
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