js 36 Dr Takemoto

I seemed to get sick quite often in Japan. If it wasn't a new allergy, then it was a cold or a virus. And sometimes it was pneumonia. When the going got too tough, I always went to Dr Takemoto in the old shopping precinct, now adjacent the new Hankyu Kippy Mall(see above photo). Dr Takemoto's clinic is a model of efficiency and modernity. Unlike surgeries in Australia, a lot of medical equipment for analysing patient ailments is kept in-house, so you can have an x-ray or a blood test and the results are ready almost instantaneously.

On arrival, you get your temperature checked and a urine analysis, self-administered, of course. Then there's the mandatory wait in front of a TV screen, which always seemed to have a panel show blearing. Then you are moved into the inner sanctum (shoes off, pretty nurses smiling), where you are but a step or two from the good doctor's room. After the first dozen or so visits, I didn't make so many mistakes, such as the time when I put the thermometer in my mouth rather than under my arm. (Polite snuffles of laughter in the waiting room)

Let me tell you just one story about this wonderful doctor. In the winter of 2004/5 I got pneumonia, though I wasn't aware of that fact for a few days. The proper procedure once diagnosed was hospitalisation, especially as I was in pretty poor shape. Dr Takemoto insisted on treating me personally, meaning I had to present every day for a week to go on an anti-biotic drip. And of course I did so. Towards the middle of my treatment I turned up at the clinic and all was in darkness. Heavens, I thought, it must be shut today. But I was wrong. Inside the dim waiting room I could see two figures. It was Dr Takemoto and a nurse. The door opened and I was ushered in. I went on the drip. Still no-one else came into the clinic. What was going on, I wondered?

I only found out the next time I went (and from another nurse) that Dr Takemoto had opened the clinic just to treat me on her only day off! What can one say about such kindness? I am still lost for words and so deeply grateful. Domo arigatou Takemoto sensei.