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April 2, 2007

When In Tokyo, Beware The Evil Poison Cookie!

Who knew individually wrapped snacks could be so perilous?

While it had been five years since I'd last visited Japan (layovers at Narita -- overnight or otherwise -- don't quite count), it's remarkable how familiar it felt to return to Tokyo. All the essential elements were still there: the tauntingly long journey from Narita into town, the plastic food in the restaurant windows, and the heavily regimented traffic crossings (photos below). All is generally quite well in the land of the rising sun.

The main intersection at Shibuya station in its "Don't Walk" state (wait for it)...

And go!

And certainly, there were some good times to be had as well, despite a pretty agressive schedule of meetings. We managed the obligatory trip(s) to Roppongi, a shopping mission in Shibuya (during which I picked up the new Fountains of Wayne record -- it was at the front of the store; they must be huge there? -- and Twigy), and even a midafternoon sojourn to check out the cherry blossom trees (for which this is apparently the primo week).

And, of course, I took my first trip to the Japanese emergency room.

So the end of the story is that everything is totally chill. I'm fine, made it back safely, all is better. No need for concern.

The middle of the story is that I had a pretty wild allergic reaction that landed me in the hospital. We were sitting down to our first post-lunch meeting and I gnoshed a cookie from the box on the the conference room table. Sure, I had just eaten, but there's always room for a cookie.

Like most Japanese confections, it was delicious.

About three minutes later, I started sneezing. And sneezing. And sneezing. To the point that I had to get up and leave the meeting. I went into the bathroom and sneezed some more. I tried to walk around to get myself to stop sneezing, but nothing. Then I went back to the bathroom and noticed that my eyes were extremely swollen. Also, I was starting to get a little short of breath. Uh oh. This wasn't good.

I ran into a coworker in the hallway who confirmed that I "looked pretty bad" and suggested that I head down to the medical office (yes, my company has a medical office on site). The medic woman in the office as well as the guy on our team who's a doctor (yes, there's an MD that I work with -- he's even a dermatologist) both confirmed that I needed a hospital, and fast. Apparently eveything would have been cool if I wasn't having problems breathing. Breathing problems are a prime indicator of anaphylactic shock, and that means you need a hospital. Within minutes, I was en route to said hospital with a guy from our team and a woman from the Japan office who'd be doing the translating.

The hospital itself was nothing special -- a little smaller-scale than I expected -- and the service was quick and useful. Sure, I was feeling lightheaded and was struggling to breathe, but at least we were there. My doctor was a jolly, rotund little fellow who sized me up pretty quickly and apologized -- through an increasingly overmatched translator whose knowledge of English didn't account for complex medical terminology -- that he wouldn't be able to run a full series of tests to determine the source of the reaction. Right. Got it. Now please fix me so the whole breathing thing gets a little easier.

The plan was to give me an IV with some kind of steroid and some pain reliever/ tranquilizer. The showed me to a little bed (I was definitely a little long for this thing) and I got comfortable. The nurse showed up a couple minutes later with the IV bag and an extremely limited English vocabulary. She held up the IV needle and said, very definitively, "Pain." "Yes," I replied, "pain." Then I pointed at my arm and nodded encouragingly. Convinced that we were on the same page and that I had been appropriately appraised of the risks of the imminent treatment, she stuck my arm and the happiness started flowing.

Forty-five minutes later (the last fifteen of which included a lovely nap), I was feeling about a thousand percent better. Another quick chat with the doctor to go over the particulars of my treatment (he had given me "extra" medicine because I was "bigger than Japanese people") and recovery (take the pills he was prescribing and don't drink alcohol, though that last bit didn't translate very well), and we were on our way to the pharmacy across the street to get my medicinal parting gifts. Said part of the mission was pretty underwhelming -- I just nodded politely as the specific restictions on the medicines were explained. Hope they don't kill me!

I have to say, in a country where I once paid $110 for a pitcher of margaritas, I felt pretty excited to get out of the hospital and pharmacy for about US$80. I got an IV bag, a cure to my anaphylactic shock, and some pills? I'll take it!

I was back in the office the next morning, safe and sound, and feeling good as new. I had never reacted like that to anything before, so I must be allergic to some kind of nut or oil they only use in Japan? I dunno. I guess I need to find an allergist this week. Add it to the task list.

The irony in this whole thing is, of course, that it happened in Tokyo, and not, say, China or Vietnam, significantly less neurotically clean places where I ate God knows what and had zero access to medical care. Or even, say, on a street in Berlin at 3 am after a long day of, um, watching soccer. Nope. It happened in Tokyo, the most hermetically immaculate major city on the planet, and it was an individually wrapped cookie -- and not some street food or even scary Fugu fish -- that got me.

Yes yes, very ironic.

And now, because it couldn't be helped, one more little bit of food porn from the trip.

Sayonara, evil poison cookie!

Posted by thatkid at April 2, 2007 12:25 AM under ThatKid

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