Not again!

Today I rushed off to Fukuoka to do a big shop. I was planning to go on Thursday, but a few children at school have come down with fevers and my big fear was that they would be diagnosed with the horrible swine flu and the school would be closed for a week and we would be confined to our house to prevent it spreading into the neighbouring rice fields. In the end the children who had the high fevers ended up not having swine flu so things are back to normal at school. However just before I got home from Fukuoka I got a phone call from my mother-in-law to say that my father-in-law had picked up the kids as organised, but that my son had fallen off the monkey bars and was having difficulty moving his arm.
For those of you who have been following this blog for a while you may recall that 2 days before we left New Zealand to return to Japan last year my daughter fell out of bed and broke her arm. My initial reaction that day was - toughen up it couldn't possibly be broken - oops! Anyway, my initial reaction to my son was pretty much the same, but I did learn something from the last experience and decided to take him to the hospital just to be sure. And guess what.... his arm is broken! It is not a bad break - the doctor described it more as the bone being "bent" and therefore it doesn't require a cast. But I did feel a little prouder of my self this time for actually believing him when he said it was sore, rather than just telling him to toughen up!
I was also VERY impressed with the service we got. We went to a hospital I have never been to before, but that is just 10 minutes down the road. We arrived at 5pm (remember what happened in NZ when we arrived at the hospital at 5pm Mum!!!). We walked in the door, handed over our insurance card, sat down for what I presumed would be a long wait, were promptly called into the doctor's room before we could even watch one bout of the sumo on TV and within 20 minutes my son had been examined, x-rayed, the x-rays returned and examined, the results explained, a bandage stuck on his arm, our bill given to us and paid and we were out the door. I repeat... all that within 20 minutes. And it all only cost 1,500 yen - which the school will refund for me as the accident happened at school. Sometimes Japan is a wonderful place!
Oh - and for those who are wondering... it did rain this morning very briefly. Perhaps the snakes are a good weather predictor!