No Nihongo

"A traveler pulls along her suitcase as she makes her way toward her terminal at Baltimore Washington International Airport early Wednesday morning."

Sometimes life is chalked full of hard decisions and I made one of the toughest I can remember this week.

For the past month I really have not been myself. My health and I have been on this see-saw type relationship and its been bothersome in my life. It actually has been going on longer, but the last month has been very rough.

I visited a couple doctors, specialist and got some medications, but nothing was completely solving my stomach-centered problems. Only holding off the symptoms for a couple days at a time if that.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, the morning we leave for Japan. All night and all morning I was feeling pretty much the lowest of lows. I was hoping that it was just a small flair up and by the time I got to Japan it would pass.

At the airport, I was still feeling ill and thought I'd still shoot some photos, video and take our first flight to Houston hoping it would escape my mind and for it to all pass. However, at that point I was miserable for four hours on the flight.

When we got off the leapfrog flight, I had to make a hard decision to try and make a 13-hour flight into Tokyo or postpone the trip and think about my health.

I knew at the time I could not do a 13-hour flight and I really didn't want to risk being sick for two-weeks in a foreign county.

After long thought, we called off the trip and decided to get me back home. It was a horrible, sad, ill feeling day.

Since arriving back in Baltimore, for the past three days I've been in and out of the hospital going through various tests that were not so pleasant; I guess the good thing is I don't remember half of them due to the anesthetics.

The good news is that there are no serious problems and hopefully (I am really hoping) that I should be feeling better soon. From what I understand, had it been taken care of months before when it was just starting, I'd be in much better condition. But I allowed it to get to far off and now in the position I am in.

Thanks to wonderful Kate for helping me out the past couple days and totally understanding.

We got nearly all of our money back for the flight, JR passes and will make it to Japan in the future. But it's not getting the money back, it's hopefully getting me to feel better and back to who I am.

Sorry for any inconvenience I've caused to my readers looking forward to Japan pictures. I am upset we could not go back and see my friends and document our travels to new places, too.

Posting will be slow as I make my way back to feeling better again. Thanks for understanding.