STORIES

Concussion: How do you communicate 'I'm hurt'?

My first host family and I had major communication issues. One, I went there hardly understanding the language other then the very basic stuff that you learned within first year Japanese in high school. As I wrote to my parents in a letter how, I found that my "Useful Japanese" phrase book was far from useful. For the most part, we communicated by the dictionary or getting frustrated and just not talking.

With that in mind, it won't come as a suprise that many communication issues came up with caused problems within my first host family situation. One of those incidents happened in May, one of the two major incidents that probably caused my host family and I to decide that we just did not fit together.

One afternoon I was in my room, doing something that I can't quite remember (again, look at the title of this story) when I decided to sit down on my bed. I had my closet open at that time which was near the bed. I bet you can see where this is going.

I sit down then suddenly slip (mind you, I am a klutz. As I write this I point out I fell down the stairs today) and fall backwards and SMACK, my head hits the edge of the wooden shelf (which is a good three inches thick by the way) and I topple to the ground. I remember hearing the loud thud of me hitting the ground then silence. I don't know how long I sat there, but the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground did not spark any interest from those below.

I got up and as bad as this sounds, I can not remember the rest of the night other then having a horrible headache. The next day I woke up (good thing) and went to school with the HORRIBLE headache. At school I drew figures for my friends to describe what had happened and they told me I should go to the hospital (which I thought was a little overkill but at that time I was unaware that they said hospital in regards to seeing a doctor). That night, I went home and again, can't remember that much of what happened.

The next day my headache was still there so I mentioned to my host parents finally, finding a way to communicate, that my head hurt. My liason from my exchange program called that night to see how things were going and I mentioned falling down and hitting my head. Next thing I know, she told me to hand the phone to my host parents and they started freaking out and the phone was passed back and forth, with my liason as the translator. My host parents couldn't believe that I hadn't told them and I pointed out that I didn't know how to say that.

In the end I didn't have to go to the hospital (though not for a lack of trying on their part) and a week later my headache went away.

The moral of that story for me was that before you travel abroad, learn how to say, "Help me, I am hurt" so that somehow you can figure out how to fix whatever ails you.