(Note: Google Translate from Japanese version with minor touching-ups.)

Immediately after I was hospitalized in Narita, in late July, I had a chance to talk to a woman in her 40s who was in the room opposite from my room across the hallway. I had done yoga in Singapore for over six years, and continued the practice in the hospital. It was when I was doing it at the hallway that she talked to me from a bit distance. "You look fine, sir." Her call to me kicked our conversation, and talked a bit more about each other and our symptoms. She is from the local Hokuso area ("北総", Narita and other cities around) and is doing training to horses in the stables. "I think I was kicked by a horse on the back of my head." Sounded like she had no memory of that moment. The place she got kicked was the back of her head, and the impact travelled to the skull through her brain and damaged the frontal lobe. She then was brought to the hospital and ordered to stay for more two weeks after follow-up. After she was discharged, she came back to the ward on the 7th floor (with the glass door between visitors and nurses due to Covid-19) where I was, and the nurses greeted her. I remembered that she had said would be back to the hospital in two weeks for the check-up. She looked happy with a smile. Looking at her face from a distance, I remembered her for a moment, but I couldn't make a smile from the jealousy with the fact that she had been discharged earlier. It was exactly when an idea occurred to me to thank healthcare professionals, those called People at Front Line, through my blogs.

Turning over now the diary of the time has found the names of 18 nurses, two physical therapists, and two doctors, written in one line each with their own characteristics. I wrote them down just in case for for future sake. "Characteristics" are such like appearance, lifestyle, and particular conversation that I engaged with them. Upon looking back, it would have been extremely rude to jotted down , such as "Auntie, chitchat-er", "born in Saga prefecture", "commuting from Nippori (Tokyo)", "small mouth on face, unexpectedly" (note: we do not see people's mouth through masks).

One of the names especially gave and left me a strong memory. Maya Yamasaki (aka). I understood her probably graduating from the college of nursing department this spring 2020, so she must have been in her younger half of 20s. Looking at my diary, dated August 16th, maybe after 10pm or around, I heard a shouting voice of the grandmother (sorry for calling her "grandma") in the same room of the horse trainer who had gone back home. The grandma just happened to come in the same room after the trainer.  She shouted, "I'm fed up, and going home! " In the dark, I saw Maya the nurse being the only counterpart, and apologized with a crying voice saying, "I'm really sorry. I was bad." "Here you. In this hospital, breakfast doesn't come out until eight o'clock. Even if I ask you a nurse thing during the day, you won't come right away. I have just made a call to family at home, and said I am going home!" After that, Maya was replaced by three other senior people with certain responsibilities, soothing the grandma and quelling the motion in about 15 minutes. During their talks, Maya and I passed each other in the corridor with no one walking except us, she looked at me and frowned in her face, "I've done it...I'm about to cry..." She got weakened with the grandma's nasty words. I replied back and said, "it's okay, there are always people like that," tapping a side of her shoulders. At that moment, however, I thought, "this kid (nurse) is also a human being." 

Through conversations with the nurses and others in the hospital, I would almost peep into their personalities and daily lives. To a particular person my diary pointed out with a mark "basketball person", made with my guess, but later her hobby turned out to be surfing. A woman who longed for a "judoka" nurse (male) is "he is very kind enough to respond everything!" Another Japanese, having returned from the US some years ago, originally studied the nursing jargons in English, so she said to me one night that there are still cases where she needs to check with Google Translate Japanese medical words at the instance of hearing them. Every time I met her, she started by talking about the weather, but with time going on, she said, "I went to Kichijoji over the last weekend to enjoy dinner my friend. It was so much fun", or "I'm a four-day shifter in straight. I'm sluggish." 

My blogs, originally, is aimed at journalistically pointing out the issues found in Japanese medical business in comparison with that of Singapore. However, each and every individual people in the industry, including my old friend Daisuke Yamanoi fighting in-between patients and his mental conditions faced (appeared in the 5th issue, September 28th), I sincerely appreciate them that are active in the Front Line.

(The photo shows a bouquet (July 30th) and fruits (September 2nd) sent home in Tokyo from the Singapore Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (Singapore ACFE), in which I was involved as Vice President until recently. My wife Koko took the photos and sent them to me at the hospital. The Singapore Chapter sent the gifts TWICE. To be continued.)