My left arm broke out into angry red splotches on Saturday and I completely freaked out. I was reminded of the time I got shingles from work-related stress, and how much it hurt and how long it took to heal. Shingles can cause blindness if it occurs on the face, I remember reading on a health website.
I guess P didn't realize the gravity of the situation when I told him I was unwell, and I found myself dragged along with the gang from one place to another in Shinjuku. I was tired, starving and scared.
After an hour and a half, we ended back in Baba and had to walk about 15 minutes to the tsukemen store, and I was sufficiently bitchy by the end of the ordeal.
I left the gang early and found myself sobbing pitifully as I walked home alone.
I set on the steps of the apartment, called Ahred and bawled my eyes out. All I needed was a familiar voice reassuring me that everything was going to be okay.
P came home soon after and helped me into the room. I pushed up my sleeves and showed him the rashes. He quickly typed in shingles on his Mac to look up the symptoms and concluded that I probaby had it again, which made me cry even harder.
"We'll go to the hospital now. I'll pay for the taxi!" he urged.
I just sat on the bed shaking my head and letting the tears flow. I thought of how my mum would constantly check in on me if I were at home, the comfort of my room in Singapore, the stream of text messages from concerned friends. Boohoohoo, allowing myself to wallow in self-pity that I was stranded in a foreign land, with no ability to express my condition in Japanese and no tender loving care from my loved ones.
It's not a particularly proud moment, if you ask me.
P tried to talk sense into me, but I refused to listen and laid in bed with the blanket over my face crying. Needless to say, he gave up after a while and headed to Denny's to study.
I managed to get some sleep but was awoken when he returned at 4 in the morning, and mightily pissed that he had not hung around to put up with me.
I decided to stay up till 6 and then went straight to work. Before I left, we had a big argument over my situation (mostly him begging me to see a doctor and me refusing) and I stormed out of the house. A dozen calls and half an hour of placating me on the phone as I journeyed to school, I calmed down eventually, along with the rashes.
Melissa met me at Baba after work to cheer me up, and we had dinner at the Nepali place and I showed her my favourite haunts in the area. We ended up buying canned beer from the conbini (convenience store) and heading back to the apartment to hang out.
When we got back, P had cleaned up the entire house and he also got me my favourite chocolate, three different varieties of bread and canned mocha for breakfast the next day.
I couldn't help but smile.
We share a bond
You and I we belong
We're like coffee and morning trains
You strip my defences
I catch your pretences
The same blood runs through our veins
Labels: confession, health, home, love, tokyo
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