It was still rainy season in the Kanto area, when I was admitted in Narita. I laid down on the bed in patient room at night, watching TV news, and the news anchor (or news casters in Japanese terms) said it would rain the next day. Then, I thought, "is it raining again tomorrow?", or only sometimes, "it looks a little sunny." Meanwhile, my wife and family were preparing to move to their current home in Tokyo with the support of friends from the Meguro era and who returned to Japan from Singapore. 

Actually, I have rented a small apartment in Minato-ku ward a few years ago, which would then be used for my short stay every time when I made a trip to Tokyo. My family also occupied the same room of one bed room every summer and winter, at least in the last two years, and this time, too, my they were packed in the same place. Wife Koko was excellent enough to arrange EVERYTHING for her family's smooth moving and transition in consideration into our kids. She started physically moving right after two weeks self-isolation. 

The rainy season of 2020 finally opened in mid-August and the summer returned, but it was only a short time left until autumn. 

It got hotter outside, but I've been in the hospital room all the time, and there would no way to be aware of the hot weather. In a morning, when nurses shifted were in leaving transition, the nurses in next shift come in: one of them in charge comes to my room, wiped her sweat and said, "the commuter train every morning was hard, and this morning too I sweated sooo much!". Then you can guess the weather outside. 

However, I was not accustomed to air-conditioned places, until when I returned to Japan, so I opened the hospital windows that did open no more than 10 cm in everywhere on the floor, such as my own room shared for four people and common spaces (called "Day Room" and other rooms such as a physiotherapy room). By the way, I was scolded by a nurse in Singapore's Raffles Hospital, as I accidentally "fully opened" and received hot air from outside. She shouted such as "you will fall into the ground!" or alike. I felt so comfortable with the hot air, but the people including the nurses and patients must have been annoyed.

My diary dated August 9 mentions a high school girl (?). In the Day Room where I tried exercising yoga. I spotted her a couple of times in the last few days. I think it was around 2:00 pm, but it was  fun for me to see whom she was talking to on her cell phone screen with earphone on her both ears. I knew from her conversation of a few days ago that she even had been hospitalized before. There was also a description found in the diary, saying, "she eats snacks all the time." Certainly, she was eating ice cream, cold sweets, and snacks, so my impression was she would be a big eater. But she wasn't fatty. As expected, she was just in her puberty.

Regarding snacking, I had asked many people to bring those to eat (like red-bean bun, rice-crackers, cookies...) before my admission, but it was only in the first few weeks to enjoy them. With the start of hospital days, I got sick little by little, and my appetite was declining. I was wondering at the time, "maybe the rice serviced is not tasty, which makes my stomach strange." Now I can tell that it is a side effect of anti-cancer drugs and radiation, but at that time I was just wondering that way. 

I normally do not eat chicken eggs, especially the ones with its shapes, raw to boiled. But at the same time, I had been "educated" by my parents since my childhood to eat everything in front of me, and every meal I ate those served in the Narita hospital as if it would be my practice. One morning when a boiled egg came out and I ate it, I had diarrhea all day. After that "incident", I told the nurse about it, she just said that I didn't have to force myself to eat eggs. Then I gave up eating them. It was when I was at the age of 53.

The end of the rainy season, and the declaration by the Japan Meteorological Agency, was extremely delayed this year until mid of August. In the hospital, I didn't notice the heat wave being returned in town, but realized that the days were getting shorter: when I was admitted the sun rises at around 5:30am, but it was at around 6:30am at my discharge in September. Even so in September, there is almost no sense of season. 

Is it hot or cold? 

Doctors, nurses, or outpatients. Every person I met downstairs including MRs wiped their sweat. The hospital food catered by an outside firm contains a minor thing or two, which would make you feel a season. In Singapore, by the way, the hospital had no sense of season. The country itself had/has no sense. The air-con inside of the building is set to 18 degrees Celsius, so it's cold anyway. Even in Japanese winter season, the temperature in Singapore hits 30 degrees at highest. I used to set the air conditioner to 26 degrees in Raffles Hospital, where an obvious Filipino nurse was grumbling, "isn't this room too hot?" Used to be a jungle, Singapore is still hot and humid, but it's a country where people wear jackets and cardigans. There is no sense of the seasons in the first place, which is why wealthy people in Southeast Asia, not only Singaporeans, come to Japan (mostly Hokkaido) to see the snow in winter.

After leaving Narita Hospital and returning home, the Japanese season turned into autumn, and the food was delicious. Mushrooms, fruits, vegetables (especially root ones)... Even ice cream is good anyway. There are various types you can see on shops, restaurants, houses, and even on the street. Unlike the dishes that tend to be monotonous, I am surprised with the variety of foods so variety for the first time in eight years.

What is the relationship between changes in the four seasons, changes in food and illness? The questions occurred to me when I realized that it had been something I should have talked about in the "social context of illness" (featured in the previous issue).

(The photo was taken in front of a tea plantation when I went to Bali on November 29, 2019 with our close family. The green of the tea trees was beautifully reflected in the sky of Bali than the image showed to the readers. In panoramic shooting, I cannot figure out who is who, but almost everyone is in the picture. To be continued.)