Hospital visit 1

On May 6th, we had interview day.  During the morning session of District training, one of the Elders had a near collapse because he was unable to breathe.  Fortunately, he finally was able to breathe and training continued.  For purpose of privacy, I'll only refer to the missionaries with fake names.  He (Elder Patient) is from Brazil, so fluent in Portuguese, little bit of English, and beginning to intermediate in Japanese.  At first we were going to take him to a hospital to have him checked out but that would require bringing another Elder (Elder Buddy) along to help translate between Portuguese and Japanese but we would have to wait until Elder Buddy finishes his interview.  Elder B is also from Brazil so fluent in Portuguese but has been serving a lot longer so very good in Japanese and has picked up English as well.  Additionally May 6th is a national holiday in Japan and thus only certain hospitals are open and only for emergency situations.  As we waited, Elder Patient seemed to be OK, so perhaps better if we waited until next day or later to go to hospital.  Everything was going fine until later that evening, we got phone call that he had another episode of difficult breathing.  We rushed down to where he was and took him to nearest hospital opened for emergencies.  I dropped them off and went to park the car in the hospital parking lot.  When I got into the hospital reception area, they had completed filling out the necessary paper work and soon afterwards they took him in for examination.  Hospital took a cardiogram and some other test and reported that his heart and lungs are fine.  Doctor diagnosed that he had a condition called Intercostal neuralgia where his chest pains were result of a nerve being compressed, possibly by his own young body still growing.  Sister Lee related how the communication went on in the exam room.  The doctor would talk to Sister Lee in Japanese, Sister Lee talks to Elder Buddy on the phone, then turn phone over to Elder Patient where Elder Buddy would explain things in Portuguese, get response from Elder Patient and then resume conversation with Sister Lee.  Sister Lee, upon hearing the response of Elder Patient from Elder Buddy, then talks back to the doctor.  This communication went on until all the symptoms and diagnosis and issues were discussed.  Altogether, the bill for that emergency visit was less than 6000 yen, which roughly translates to less than $60.