Almost unique and definitely special. I always knew it...

It's been a very odd week so far, a proper rollercoaster of anger, joy and passion. Albeit without the passion. I was so tired on monday night I stayed in, and on Tuesday was glad I had , because I needed my wits about me. Last Friday I was told I had to go back to the hospital to have a 2nd chest x-ray, although no-one would tell me why other than "recheck"- recheck what? I soon found out. My Junior High School is the only school I have that treats me like an adult and thus they told me what time the bus came and to get it to the hospital. I was going alone! Yay! No escort! I now know sometimes this isn't great.

So I arrive at the hospital determined to find out why I have to have another chest x-ray and the nurse takes me to see Doctor (who actually was a radiologist, not a Dr, but this isn't the time to be fussy). This man has learnt the contents of an English medical dictionary, but unfortunately for me he hasn't learnt the contents of a standard dictionary and so has to join the phrases up with Japanese. Well, it's OK, we're both laughing because of the situation and he's rattling off these words and I'm going, "oh", and, "ah..." and what he's saying clearly doesn't hit me immediately. Firstly they have no prior x-ray, so he doesn't know if what they're seeing is new. There are shadows on my lungs (I'm still laughing because he is saying shadows and saying lungs in about 15 different intonations) but he thinks it's scar tissue from an operation. I try and say "I haven't had an operation on my lungs" in Japanese, and it's just not happening, so we both start laughing again. He gets the message from my burbling. Then he says he thinks it's probably not malignant and I make more "oohs" and "aahs" like a kid at a Christmas pantomime, and the clerk in the room with us starts laughing. Then he says "probably benign" and I compliment him on his English at which point we're almost rolling on the floor. And then he starts talking about x-rays and scans. So I have a CT scan- another first in Japan! I've never had a CT scan before (something else under my belt- although I could have lived without it). The only trouble is the CT scan announcements are in Japanese. The technician explains in broken English what the announcements will say ("hold breath... 30 second") and I lie there and wait. And the table moves forwards and up, and there is an announcement over the tannoy. And without the radiologist trying to talk to me I'm not laughing anymore and when the announcement over the tannoy bears no relation to what the woman told me, I am almost having CT-scan-ruining palpitations with all sorts of panicky thoughts going through my head.

As she helps me off the table and offers one of the standard Japanese greetings that means something like "ta for the effort", the technician stops, checks herself and says it again but with an "always" stuck to the front- it turns out I teach two of her kids. It really is a small place where I live.

The results that were due in ten minutes actually took thirty-five, but it was good news. In English, the radiologist announced "no malignant. No TB , no pneumonia". So what then? Maybe an extra blood vessel or vein apparently. In true drama queen style, I understood this very important line, spoken to me in Japanese: "I have been a radiologist for 10 years. And I've never seen this before." I AM special! I have no idea what it means though, but I figure it hasn't popped up overnight and has never done me any harm, so I don't see why I should worry about it now. The scan will be shown to a doctor and I will find out next month what it is. Although I already know- I think they may have found my pet tapeworm- Slinky. . I shan't let them remove it! How will I stay slim without good old Slinky to reprocess all my food? Hang on, there's always cigarettes...

Anyway, last night Johanna and I hit the karaoke salon to destress after World War 3 nearly started between Johanna and her Principal (I have no doubts who the staff would have been picking out of the carpet this morning...), and after acting like the freak section from a 1920's circus we realised there was a video camera in the karaoke room. Now EVERYONE knows we're special...