リハビリ - Rehabilitation

May and I have worked our way down to the fourth floor of the hospital for the second time now. However, because the fourth floor is all orthopaedic, there is only one ward (4F) on the east side of the building and a rehabilitation centre on the west. Last time we were on this floor, I went to work on the 4F ward for two weeks and May spent the first week in Rehabilitation and the second with a nurse doing home visits. So, this time I got to go to Rehab. Compared to the work on the wards rehab is a piece of cake – in the literal sense too, since you get a daily tea break, complete with your choice of okashi ('confectionery').

It was very inspiring working in rehab. At first I was quite anxious during my time there because a lot of my responsibilities involved talking with patients – all in Japanese, of course. One patient changed my perspective a little though. She came and sat down next to me part way through her walking laps of the centre. All I said to her was, “Tsukareta desu ka?” (“Are you tired?”) and she launched into a whole story about her knee replacement. Within minutes she had lifted up her trouser leg and shown me her six-inch scar too. She didn't care that I clearly wasn't understanding everything she was saying; she just wanted to say it to somebody. I was less shy about talking to patients after that.

The patient I interacted with most though was an eighty-nine year old woman. I don't know what was wrong with her (she came down each day from 6th floor, so not an orthopaedic patient) but she was clearly very old and very frail. Unlike most Japanese people, she looked older than she was. She came to rehab every day for both a physical and metal workout. I was given the task of keeping her word association up to scratch. I would show her a picture on a card and ask her what it was and she had to answer. This was quite difficult for us both. She couldn't always remember the word and I couldn't always understand the Japanese. She was your stereotypical Japanese woman though: she could remember the names of every different type of flowers I showed her but she couldn't remember the difference between a fork and a spoon. At the end of the week, the tables were turned and she got to ask me what the picture on the card was and I had to tell her in Japanese. Even at 89, she totally kicked my ass at it!

I noticed that most of the people in Rehabilitation were elderly. I thought how it would be bad enough for a young, fit person to go through such dramatic surgery and to be faced with a long rehab program, but add onto that old age... that's tough. I broke my little finger playing netball when I was eleven and it still aches to this day. I have noticed it more recently due to the type of work I am doing here in Japan. Any task that involves splaying my fingers or moving the little one independent of the adjacent finger and it'll become all stiff and painful. And that's just a broken finger from eight years ago. These people are recovery from broken pelvises for goodness sake! It was very clear how great a job the orthopaedic surgeons do. It seemed impossible that these people were walking at all and yet there they were, striding through the rehab centre with their walking sticks permanently raised from the ground. Yes, Rehabilitation was very inspiring. I realised though, that physical rehab is a lot like yoga – very beneficial to your health but it makes, at times, passing wind impossible to avoid.