June 14, 1983, Tuesday
Mr. Inoue picked me up at the capsule hotel at 9:00am this morning to drive me to the point where I stopped yesterday, 15km from the city. The plan was to run the 15km to Kumamoto and another 20km to Ueki. The distance of 35km sounded like a piece of cake.
On the way to the start, we stopped by Kumamoto Nishi High School, where Mr. Inoue teaches social studies. When we arrived, he took me to the nurse's office just to get myself checked by the nurse. The nurse took my body temperature and found it to be 40 degrees Celsius. The normal core body temperature of a healthy, resting adult human being is stated to be at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 37.0 degrees Celsius. With a temperature at 40 degrees Celsius, we knew that I was in trouble. I was immediately taken to a hospital and had to check in.
For the rest of the day, I received numerous shots and IV's. The body temperature eventually rose to 41 degrees Celsius. I asked the doctor about my condition, and he informed me that I had some form of pneumonia. He explained to me that their priority was to get my body temperature down. To that end, a couple of young nurses came into my room giggling, as they asked me to lower my pants. They then proceeded to insert a suppository in my rear that was supposed to help bring down my body temperature. I would not recommend this experience to anyone. In just a few days, I went from running ultra distances to laying flat on my stomach while young girls forced a pellet in my arse.
Now I can't help but hear my buddy, Robert Baldridge, laughing as he joked, "You may not even make it out of Kyushu!" There is no way I can quit at this point.
I will be staying in the hospital tonight. I just can't believe that I am actually a patient in a hospital. I was never hospitalized in my life other than the day I was born. I've been thinking back about the past few days, wondering what it was that contributed to my condition other than the distances. It must have been the runs on the mountain roads in the cold, driving rain. When I left Minamata, the road took me into some mountainous areas, which included a number of dark, narrow tunnels. Although I did have some close calls with cars in those tunnels, it turns out that the wind and rain did more harm to me after all.
I'm not sure how long they will keep me here. It all depends on how quickly I recover. I'd better focus on getting some rest now.
4 comments:
Fred,
Where the nurses hot? If they were, then it was worth being sticked.
They looked mighty fine to me, but I am sure they weren't very impressed with my brown-eye.
At least the suppository went in the right way.
My brother was so sick (in his 50's by the way) and was given suppository. While we were talking on the phone, he was telling me the doctor gave him a weird looking medicine that looked like a bullet. (He had already taken one orally.) After he described it to me, I told him it was supposed to go up his @ss.
That's a good one! I laughed out loud reading that.
It's almost like the guy who used a tube of Preparation H for toothpaste!
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