Sunday, January 25, 2009

What I Already Knew

I took two weeks off from running and then did 5k, 5k, 11k, and 5k Tues-Fri this past week. My knee (and now left ankle) has still been bothering me a bit. So I got the go-ahead from the Zamami clinic doctor to go to Naha for further examination.

The Naha sports clinic was open Saturday morning and I had to plan well as that was my only window. I got bad directions from 3 of 5 people and it took me 40 minutes to go the mere one block distance from my friend's apartment. I had an x-ray at 10:30am and things seemed on track, until I went in to see the doctor. He was reported to not speak English, but to understand it written. But I guess I got the wrong doctor because neither did he understand the page I'd typed about my problem nor did he understand anything I said. I fumed internally as I realized the appointment was a waste of my time. All I got out of it was that he said my joints were mechanically sound, I should stretch, and I should stop running. His further advice was to see an English-speaking doctor up north.

I got ahold of my Japanese friend, who I'd planned to spend the afternoon with, and she agreed to go with me to the other clinic. I got x-rays again because the morning clinic wouldn't give them to me. This doctor also talked a lot, but Eri was able to tell me what he said. Which wasn't very helpful. He said my joints were sound and I needed to stretch more.

So after a trip to Naha I'm pretty much in the same position I was before, except now some people with Harvard medical degrees told me to stretch more.

Eri claimed her rain check this morning and we went to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park, then out to lunch at an awesome Thai restaurant with a great view.

[There are tons of granite panels in an amphitheater formation, all with names of people who died in Okinawa during the war. There were a lot of names...]

[me and curry]

[Eri told me not to put a picture of her on the blog, but I thought this was a nice one]

2 comments:

Son of Higashi said...

You look very kawaii with your curry.

erin said...

Eri takes a nice picture.
You, on the other hand, look deranged.

oh, and stretch more. stupid.