With a little help from my friends

This term in Japan, now in it's fourth year has been marked by new experiences and a distinct pushing of the envelope of what I was comfortable with. 

On Saturday morning I woke up with the most painful stiff neck in recent memory.  If I turned to face left I felt an electric like shock through the muscles of my neck and shoulder.  If I raised my head to look upward I was likely to have a similar reaction.  So, I applied all of the home remedies I had at hand, hot shower, ibuprofen, arthritis cream, ice, sometimes on their own, sometimes in combination, throughout the day,which included a bus to Soya for an English Class which lasted two hours and the bus trip back.  I switched to heat after that and though I slept well enough if I stayed on my left side I woke on Sunday with increased stiffness if no more electric shocks.  I canceled out of the IVIS bus tour to Kamakura. 

At church I mentioned my malady to a couple friends and by Monday morning my friend network was planning my strategy.  They came to an agreement on the clinic I should go to and one of them called ahead to tell them my situation and that I don't speak Japanese. I paid a visit to the doctor and was treated with several chiropractic techniques which were familiar to me from my days long ago in America when I suffered from lower back pain.  The doctor and I had some interesting exchanges in Japanese English and English Japanese and were both able to laugh at out own mistakes.  Today I'm better and have discovered that the chiropractor is the brother of the dentist that lives across the street from me.