Valium? Did you say Valium?

Last Wednesday morning, everyone in town over the age of 40, including me, was supposed to go in for a stomach cancer screening. So I made my way down to the town hall parking lot, took a seat outside the big truck (a mobile lab), and waited for my turn to be inspected.

In order to get our stomachs to expand so that the doctor could get a good look at our stomachs on his monitor and take clear x-rays, we had to swallow some pop-rocks-like material with water(?), followed by a cupful of barium sulfate mixed with water. That was a strange experience.

The mixture looked like just like milk, except it was really thick and really heavy, and it didn't have much flavor. So I can't say I enjoyed drinking it. And since Japanese people have trouble pronouncing the letter "r," when the say "barium" it sounds a lot more like "Valium." What, you want me to take Valium? Are you nuts?

After I drank the barium "meal," I was told to lie down on a horizontal table/bed. The doctor then moved the table/bed electronically up and down and even into a nearly vertical position at one point. Every few seconds or so he told me to move a bit to the right or left or even to rotate around completely. The problem was, I barely understood anything he was telling me. The doctor often had to interrupt the process and take a hands-on approach to moving me. You'd think doctors, who have such an important job, would know a bit of English, wouldn't you? Not this one.

After the inspection, the doctor gave me four little red tablets. I kind of got the gist that I was supposed to take two of them right away, but I wasn't sure what the other two were for. Luckily, the next guy in line, who was also in the lab waiting his turn, spoke really good English. So he explained to me what the pills were for. Based on what the guy told me, I guess you could say his English was maybe too good:

"You should take two of the pills now, with water. Then you shit!"

And what about the other two pills?

"If you don't shit, take the other two pills. But wait five or six hours. Then take the pills and you'll shit."

Wait, the pills do what?

"They make you shit!"

I swear, the guy must have said "shit" about five times during our brief conversation. But how can I expect him to know the term "bowel movement"?

Before taking the pills, I wanted to be absolutely sure that I was indeed supposed to take them. So I asked the doctor for some water. He told me he didn't have any for me.

When he said that, I figured that meant I wouldn't have much time between taking the pills and having to "shit." So I figured I'd wait until I got back to school to take the pills, so I'd be within easy reach of a toilet!

When I got back to school, I started searching the Internet for information pertaining to stomach cancer screening, since I never heard of such a thing in America.

It turns out, if the information I read is correct, that stomach cancer is far more prevalent in Japan and Korea, for instance, than in the U.S. Apparently, the high rates of stomach cancer are due at least in part to the food they eat here:

Foods high in starch and low in fiber (can you say, "rice"?), and a diet high in smoked, salted, or pickled foods (they love pickled plums called umeboshi, they also enjoy a little pickled something called tsukemono with many meals, and they probably have miso soup, which is high in salt content, two or three times a day).

So now I have yet another reason to not eat rice very often.

I also wonder why the Japanese aren't giving up rice, too, if it contributes to stomach cancer. But asking the Japanese to give up rice is like asking the President to move from the White House to a cottage. It won't be happening any time soon!