A New Year spent in bed for the first time in half a century 😆

It is already January 11th, and 2023 has arrived in the blink of an eye.

Once again, I look forward to your continued support this year 😊

Actually, I had been feeling a bit under the weather since New Year's Eve, and as I feared, I developed a fever on New Year's Day 😅

My wife hurriedly looked for a clinic for me, and I visited a fever outpatient clinic that was open from the 2nd.

I tested negative for both COVID and the flu, but thanks to that, the first three days of the year were truly spent in bed 😓

While lying in bed, I was reminded of something that happened exactly 50 years ago.

It is a story from when I was in the third grade of elementary school, nine years old, during the New Year.

When I was in elementary school, it was our custom every New Year's Eve to watch the Kohaku Uta Gassen and then go to Oji Shrine near Asukayama Park with my father for our first shrine visit of the year.

That year, we were watching Kohaku as a family, and just as we were getting ready to head out for our first shrine visit,

I suddenly started feeling sick 😨

I felt so nauseous that I couldn't help but vomit.

I had been looking forward to that first shrine visit with my father.

Unfortunately, I had to stay home, and my father went to the shrine alone.

It was the right decision not to push myself to go, as I continued to vomit repeatedly throughout the night, past midnight, and into the morning of New Year's Day.

After a while, there was nothing left in my stomach, so I was just bringing up stomach acid.

Of course, it was the first time in my life I had experienced such a thing.

Since it was 50 years ago, the toilets were still the Japanese-style squat type. I still clearly remember sticking my head into the squat toilet and retching while tears streamed down my face.

And so, New Year's morning arrived.

Normally, I would have been eating osechi with my family, but instead, I went first thing in the morning to an emergency hospital called Kishi Hospital in Jujo to get checked out.

The diagnosis was appendicitis!

And so, at nine years old, I ended up having to get my stomach cut open on New Year's Day 🤣

I was given a painfully sharp injection in my spine 💦 and underwent surgery while half-awake.

Since my eyes were covered, I couldn't see anything, but even though there was no pain, I had this strange sensation of something rummaging around inside my abdomen.

It was an incredibly unpleasant feeling 😓

After the surgery, my recovery was incredibly fast! 😁

The next day, my relatives came to visit and made me laugh, forcing me to battle the itchy pain of my stitches. Two days later, I was already walking normally, and I remember jumping on and off the bed by about the third day.

And now, fifty years later, this year.

While it wasn't a major event like hospitalization or surgery, it was a spectacular New Year's spent in bed 😆

2023 is perhaps the year I have the most things I want to accomplish in my life, but it has had an unexpected start.

That said, I don't know.

Strangely enough, I don't feel down at all.

On the contrary, I feel bright and positive, thinking, 'I managed to get rid of this year's bad luck right at the start!' 🥰

An NPO I am planning to establish.

I am currently in the middle of creating a simple project proposal.

Regardless, the most important thing is the purpose.

In my own way, I have summarized it into the following wording.

2023 began with a New Year's holiday spent in bed for the first time in half a century. It is the year I turn sixty.

I am someone who only looks forward, but I look forward to your continued support this year as well (^^♪

If you would like, please read this Kindle book, which is filled with my thoughts! 😊