Part 1

May 12 Wednesday, 2010

I slipped on the pavement tile that was wet with rain, when I was stretching my vertebrae by holding a bar with hands and bending my body at the waist in the court yard. I fell down from the hip against the hard pavement, and terrible pain attacked me. I could not move for about five minutes and then went back to home. However, the pain of my back (waist) did not decrease but tended to increase.

May 13, Thursday

I stayed on bed quietly whole day long but the pain did not diminish.

May 15 Friday

I asked an ambulance and was carried toａhospital.  Then, my body was examined with X ray.  Dr. Ohi, a physician of the hospital, told me that the damage was the compression fracture of the second lumbar vertebra and asked me to rest quietly in bed for three weeks.

I was accommodated on one of four beds in a big room (Room 302). My room mates were Mr. Kojima 96 years old, Mr. Yanagisawa 82 years old and Mr. Takahashi 74 years old.

Mr. Kojima speaks little but somebody told me that he used to be the principal of a school. Mr. Yanagisawa speaks least but Mr Takahashi is rather talsikative.

Thus, my first experience of the hospital bed had started.