For those who read my Japan story and were eagerly waiting for the rest of it - I apologize for not updating any further during late summer 2001. Part of the problem was I don't have easy access to a scanner, then my health deteriorated for a bit but still looked positive. Then I started graduate school with hopeful eyes and completely lost track of a lot of things that I held dear to my heart - including updating The Fields of Eden and everything connected to it.

Then for a while my heart just wasn't in it. I *did* want to write something about the rest of my trip - especially since it was the first time I'd been in Japan. I've wanted to go to Japan ever since third grade, when I'd been first introduced to the Japanese lifestyle in textbooks and pictures. So after the whole chasing-after-Duran-Duran part of my trip was over, I happily switched over to playing the American tourist on vacation in Japan.

My trip to Japan was more than just a vacation - less than a month before I graduated with my bachelors' degree in biology from the University of Maryland. This was a graduation gift improvised by my dad. Originally my dad was going to take the family to Sydney in July 2001, because he had a scientific meeting to attend there. A couple weeks before I graduated, my friend Tina mentioned to me that she had extra Japan concert tickets because one of our other friends backed out on her at the last minute. I expected to have to beg and plead for the opportunity, yet my dad set up the plane and hotel reservations for the trip to Tokyo. Looking back at it all now, maybe he had sensed that I was becoming less healthy as time wore on, and that summer was the best time for me to take an extended vacation abroad.

I knew in March, based on test results, that my body was being more affected by my disease - lupus. If you're interested in knowing more of the details, see the Lupus Foundation of America's website. It's an autoimmune disease, and what's worse, it's a chronic disease (with no completely viable cure in the present). During my last semester, I had been stressed out trying to finish my departmental honors project on time - which included finishing the 50+ page thesis and preparing a talk to be given in front of the entire department. I'd had my first ever debilitating migraine headache that month, about a week before the draft of the thesis was due - it was so bad that I couldn't see out of my right eye and the entire right half of my body couldn't feel anything. Over the next couple months, I had a couple more of these "headaches" but never had a medical explanation for them. Since then, my doctors have attributed these experiences to being "lupus headaches" since they never find anything wrong when they run CAT scans or MRIs. Personally, I think they came about when I was very stressed, running very low on sleep and rest, and at the same time, my lupus was being very active.

I think I must have either gone to Japan with the flu, or I had picked it up on the way over, because by the time I'd gotten there, my whole head felt stuffed up. Luckily, before I'd gone, my primary doctor had given me antibiotics so I loaded up on those for a week. I'm glad that my dad went with me to Japan, because I really could not have made it by myself - I had really bad jet lag the first day in Japan, and I wouldn't have been able to keep up the pace with the rest of the "visiting" Duranies, all of whom drank like fish and didn't sleep much during the whole experience, so I've heard. I tried to rest as much as humanly possible, but even at the first concert I went to - my first Duran Duran concert *ever* - I wasn't feeling the greatest and had a horrible headache afterwards. I ended up sacking out for a while on a hotel bed in Tina and Michelle's room before I figured out how to get back to my hotel. I still feel bad blowing off Warren, who we passed in the lobby, because I was feeling so sick. (If you were wondering, Warren was trying to find some place where he could get a decent steak - I guess he'd quit the macrobiotic diet he was so keen on earlier.) Warren, if you're reading this - I'm tons sorry about that night.

At least for the rest of the trip, I was able to take it a lot easier. There are a lot of shrines (religious and secular) in Japan, and one I visited with my dad was this enormous Buddha in the town of Namakura. Now, I'm not Buddhist - actually, I don't have a defined religion, I wasn't brought up with organized religion. But my health problems seemed to have multiplied since I had been diagnosed when I was 12, so I thought some thoughtful meditation at these shrines might help. At least they would help to calm my worried mind - worried that my condition was going to get worse.

Two days after I'd seen Duran Duran at the Shibuya-Ax (my second concert), my dad and I took the super fast and scenic Bullet Train to Kyoto, where purportedly there are over 6,000 shrines. We took a tour, and visited quite a few of the Kyoto landmarks. There's something to be said about these Buddhist shrines - I left the ones we visited with a sense of spirituality I'd never experienced before. In one particular shrine, there was even a sort of "patron saint" of the sick - supposedly if you prayed and touched this particular statue, it was supposed to confer healing and better health. As much as I don't believe in a divine being controlling life, I did my best and stood there by that statue for a while, hoping that I'd have a miracle. I did a lot of crying in Japan. And a lot of soul-searching - I spent a lot of time at these shrines, I guess hoping that someone or something would give me the answers I'd been looking for all along - why me, and would I ever get better?

story continues here - so click away.
Blown By the Wind of Reason - my main essays page and directory.
The Fields of Eden - main entry page.

this page added on 01/16/02