X-mas and New Years

The winter holidays weren't that great for me, at least in the beginning. This was the first, and probably only time, I returned to the USA during my time in Japan to spend the holidays at home. Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, two days before my plane ride home, I was hospitalized my first time (and hopefully last time) in Japan.

Around 2 a.m. I started feeling sick to my stomach, and after 3 hours of being sick, I got so dehydrated I started passing out, and woke up on my bathroom floor with a bloody nose. Needless to say, this is really scary when you live by yourself and know you can't go to the hospital by yourself. I had to call my good friend at 5 a.m. to drive me to the nearest clinic, but since it was closed (hard to believe a medical place would close) she had to call me an ambulance to take me to the nearest municipal hospital. I am so lucky to have such good friends, who took care of me this whole time. If I didn't have them, I would have been much worse off.

 I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the hospital, until they cleared me to go home. The following day I flew to the USA from Japan. It was an exhausting few days but I can't sleep in airplanes, so I didn't really sleep until I got home.

However, the time at home was great! I was so fortunate my two good friends joined me this time, and we had a great few days together in Tennessee before they returned to Japan. I stayed an additional week just to rest and buy the things I needed before I headed back to Japan. Of course, I want to thank my wonderful family, and friends who made this a great winter vacation for me. I wish I could have stayed longer, but it's just not possible with everything I needed to do when I got back.

Sorry for the short post, but not much happened during this time period! I'll post more soon.