Ingo

About 2 weeks ago, on a long night, I touched my neck and felt something strange. There was something that didn't belong there. It felt like a knobble. I touched it for a short time, but then decided it was nothing to worry about.
The next morning, I had forgotten about that.

The night before we went on our trip to Kyoto, the 20th of February, I happened to touch that spot again and did not only suddenly remember the discovery of this knobble about one week earlier, but also that it had definitely grown since then. I touched it, grabbed it, tried to understand what that could be , tried to find an explanation for it. It started to hurt.
While we were in Kyoto, the knobble remained as big and hard as it was, it also kind of hurt, but I couldn't really tell if it hurt because it was something that was supposed to hurt, or if it was just hurting because of the constant harrassment done by not only my hands but also my friends' who were observing this whole thing with quite some interest.
As things usually get less scary once they are named properly, I decided to give this knobble the beautiful name "Ingo". From that moment on, people would ask me every other hour "How is Ingo?" and I liked it better than the previous "How's your cancer going?".
Not that i would have been scared of the word cancer, in fact, I was the one who would make cancer jokes all the time (followed by the others though), but still, it is somewhat nicer not to say the evil t-word all the time (tumor).
So, his name was Ingo from now on.
About Ingo, there have been quite some interesting theories which I would like to tell you.
The cancer theory is pretty obvious, but there were also people saying it might be just a swollen lympa node, which is not particularly entertaining, but it's getting better.
It might have been that an alien would have laid its egg inside my neck and now I would be breeding a beautiful little alien baby, called "N the ORA".
There was also a theory that Ingo might be my twin. He stopped growing after a few weeks as an embryo, and had just recently started to grow again. He would be my twin and accompany me from now on.
People also suggested that my brain had become too small for all the knowledge I stored in there, so there was now a second brain growing at my neck.
Or, as they also figured, it might be my heart of stone showing through there.


Yeah, those theories about the development and whereabouts of Ingo filled many joyful hours during our Kyoto trip.
I would give my friends detailed information about how i wanted my funeral to be held, we decided that half of my ash would be blown over japan, while the other half would be taken home to germany. The only problem was, where to store my heart of stone (they say that because I don't cry), which I decided should be taken to my school's roof and stored there for the next 500 years.
My friends were also discussing with me about my possessions and where very disappointed that I would not promise them my PSP.
However I enjoyed everything (we had many great laughs) I was a bit uneasy, I guess you can understand that. What if it would be really something serious? Wouldn't I continuously ask myself how I could EVER have been so stupid to make fun about something as grave as this?
If I got to know that it was actually a tumor, would I still call this thing Ingo? Make fun? What if I had to return home to get a surgery?
I did not really believe that it was cancer, but still, there was this small thorn constantly poking me and saying "but it COULD be, you know that". So the first thing I did the morning after I came back from the Kyoto trip was to go to the doctor.

And going to the doctor is a quite bewildering experience you can make in japan, but you should wish you will never really be in need of a doctor here. I guess just everybody trusts the doctors of his own country the most, and so do I.
For exchange students, the journey begins with a visit in the university's medical care center. I am very, very grateful to my roommate who decided, although I had not ask her to do so, to come with me as a moral and language support. We headed there and were sent to a nurse who would do a first check. She touched Ingo and, what was the first thing she would do? She touched the same spot on the other side of my neck, probably thinking that this might be totally normal on foreigners' necks. Hell, woman, if this would be normal, I would not sit here!
She then asked me the normal questions, like "How long do you have this?" and "Does it hurt?", "Is your general physical constitution alright?" or "Do you have more spots like this?"
She then started to write a short description on a piece of paper. She wrote like "On the neck there is a 15mm....".....
Then she had to look up the Kanji for the word she was searching in a dictionnary. I first thougth it would be a dictionnary for complicated medical vocabulary, but the book's title said "Useful collection of basic vocabulary"......
Ehm.... yeah....
She then told us the address of a doctor where I should go. We had some time left until that doctor would open his practice, so we returned home first and searched for the word that woman had looked up. It meant something like "alcer", but the actually interesting part was that this word was written with a Kanji made of "Illness" and "Foreign"... Just that this "Foreign" Kanji is also used for "Foreign student" wich gave us wild phantasies about this word being a code that said "it's a foreign student, so you know what to do! Kill her before she infects the japanese people with her evil bacteria!"....
gallows humor, you could call that....
We then went to the doctor who was asking me the same questions as the nurse before. Just that, while he was asking, he constantly pressed Ingo in all different ways. So my answer to "Does it hurt?", which had been "Just a bit." turned, at least in my mind, to "YES! WILL YOU STOP HURTING ME!", but I didn't say anything.
Then, he started typing on his computer and opened a program that looked more or less like microsoft paint. He had simple graphics of every part of the body saved in there and opened one that showed the neck. He then drew a black circle at the point where Ingo was on my neck and saved this in my file (Yeah, I have an own file now).
It looked a bit like kindergarden. Sorry, but doctors shouldn't draw with microsoft paint. They should write in complicated medical terms.
He then explained his diagnosis to me. He told me the words in japanese and english and would also write them down in english, so that I could read them in case I didn't understand his english so well.
To shorten things, he told me that this thing was a swollen lymph node. There was also a slight possibility that it was some tumor, but it was definitely no malignancy so there was nothing to worry about.
What was funny was just the fact that he, being japanese, of course used a japanese way to say this. Which means that his sentences would be like that:
"Probably, this is just a swollen lymph node, well, that is what I think. I also think that it might become smaller the next time, well, that is just what I think."
I expect a doctor to tell me what it IS, not what it might be under certain circumstancis in his opinion, considering the fact that blabla.

Cost me 820 Yen.

But 820 Yen for celebrating my birthday knowing I won't die so soon was worth that and more, I think.

However, as a foreign student I am supposed to get this money back. So I went to the medical care center and gave them a paper with the final diagnosis of the doctor as well as the bill, and they told me to go to the bureau for international affairs (which is in the same building, at least), so I went there and found out I would have had to get a paper from them before going to the doctor, but I could still get the paper now and bring it to the doctor. I had to do that, the university needs this paper as well, it's kind of an insurance thing.
So I went to that doctor once again today and they told me they would fill out the paper, no problem. It will be done on the 15th of march. Ooooookay. So we have 820 Yen there. I had to go to that doctor and back today, that'S 150Yx2=300 Yen.
520 Yen left. If I go again to get this paper back it's going to be 220 Yen left. THAT IS SICK! And unnesseccary.
Well, I'll not be there on the 15th anyway, so I'll ask my roommate to get it for me.
So much stress because of a stupid paper, GOD, dear japanese, ever heard of FACSIMILE?

So much for Ingo. He is getting smaller these days, btw.

I also found a wallet. I brought it to the police station. I am such a nice girl. I didn't take out any money and also didn't use the guy's credit card. I would get 5% of the wallet's money's worth, but that would not even be enough to buy gum here, so I said I don't want it. I also said I don't want any "Thank you"-call, which would be a thing of good manners here, but there are quite many japanese who don't like that either, so you can just tell them not to give away your cell phone number.
So, I hope the guy gets his wallet and is happy about that. I would have wanted someone to return my wallet to me when I "lost" it at school (I am still convinced that somebody stole it). So I feel good now.

Thanx for the comments! Please continue telling me what you are doing and how you are feeling, I love to read that and I really miss you guys. I hope I'll find the time to write you mails the next days, but even if I don't, please be aware that I am very happy about everything you write to me.

Love!

New vocabulary:

癌 - gan - cancer

瘤- kobu - swelling, tumour,

癌瘤ちゃん - gan kobu chan - a new nickname for me. gan is the family name, kobu the given name. chan is a suffix like san, but more informal and used towards girls. yeah, I am gan kobu chan.