世界の中心で愛！？を叫ぶ（英語版）"Shouting Love!? at the Center of the World "（English Version）

笑えるエッセイ No.９ Funny, embarrassing story - English version
April 11, 2026

"Uh… could you hold this down for me, please?"

"Huh?" I looked at my own left wrist.

A young nurse was trying to insert an IV needle while I lay on the hospital bed with my arm obediently extended like a tuna at a fish market.

She was pressing a cotton pad against my wrist and telling me to hold it there myself with my right hand.
I glanced down.
The cotton was bright red, completely soaked with my blood.

"Ah?... right," I said, trying to act cool despite the fact that my circulatory system appeared to be auditioning for a horror movie.
Apparently, she was going to try again.

But she never said things like:
"The first attempt failed."
or:
"I'll try once more."
or even:
"Sorry…"

Perhaps the word failure is forbidden in hospitals. Like Voldemort.
Without acknowledging the incident in any way whatsoever, she calmly succeeded on the second attempt, hung up a saline bag labeled "Normal Saline," announced the next procedure, and vanished.

After she left, I noticed one corner of the bedsheet had turned a dark reddish black with my blood.

An encouraging start.
Lately, my regular ECG results hadn't looked great.
The ECG measures the electrical activity of the heart as it contracts and relaxes. Since my sixties, my T waves had gradually flattened and dipped downward—apparently suggesting that my heart muscle wasn't behaving itself during recovery.

So the doctors recommended a more detailed examination: threading a catheter—a tiny tube about 2 millimeters wide—through a blood vessel and injecting contrast dye to inspect the coronary arteries.

Depending on the results, they might insert a stent to widen the artery.
And so, for the first time in my life, I was hospitalized.

Naturally, I was anxious.
But at the same time…
there was also a weird sense of excitement.

An overnight stay in the Kingdom of the Non-Ordinary.
I was assigned the window bed in a four-person room on the fifth floor. The view was excellent.

"This is going to be comfortable," I thought.
And then came the IV needle incident.
Hospital dinners arrive absurdly early.
But they're warm, nutritionally balanced, salt-controlled, and delivered directly to your bed.
An announcement said that patients capable of walking could pick up their own meals.
But honestly?
Having food magically delivered while lying down is one of civilization's greatest achievements.

Hospitals also go to sleep early.
Late at night, hardly anyone walks the corridors.
And that midnight hospital atmosphere…
Mysterious.
Thrilling.
Slightly haunted.
Naturally, around midnight, I decided:
I should wander around.

I slipped out into the dim corridor after lights-out. Far away, the nurses' station glowed softly like a spaceship bridge.
Following the footlights along the hallway, I headed toward the bathroom.

Then—
I sensed someone beside me.
I turned.
An unfamiliar old man was staring at me while dragging an IV stand behind him.
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Then I realized.
It was my reflection in the dark mirror.

That somehow made it worse.
It reminded me of those elevator monitors that display the passengers from an overhead camera angle.
Sometimes you notice a glowing bald spot on somebody's head and think:
"Wait… whose scalp is that?"
And then realize:
Oh God. There was only me.
A uniquely spiritual form of damage.

Back in the room, the elderly man in the next bed had fallen asleep with the ceiling light blazing.
Unable to sleep in the unfamiliar environment, I drifted in and out of consciousness while being slowly roasted by his illumination.

Then suddenly:
BWOOOOOOOMP.
A deep, majestic, soul-shaking fart echoed through the room.
It had gravitas.
Historical weight.
Like a tuba announcing the fall of an empire.

Remembering a line from a historical NHK TV drama—
"We are but farts in the wind!"—

I greeted the next morning.
Little did I know…
the true horror was yet to come.

I began noticing that the nurses wore two different uniform colors.
The colorful uniforms belonged mostly to younger staff—people who looked two or three years into the job. Some had idol-style haircuts. One young guy had gloriously chaotic curly hair.
The nurses in white uniforms radiated veteran energy.

On the morning of my second day, under gloomy rain clouds, Guess Who arrived to check my blood pressure and temperature.
Curly-Hair Guy.
After the routine checks, he casually announced:
"Your catheter procedure is at 1:30 this afternoon, so at 11 we'll insert the urinary tube."
Ah yes.
The sentence every man hopes never to hear.

At 11 sharp, he returned carrying instruments of psychological warfare.
Even imagining it hurt.
A tube.
Inserted into that narrow passage.
Whether you say "insert" or "stab," neither sounds promising.

Curly-Hair Guy prepared everything with cheerful efficiency.
Meanwhile, I changed into a surgical gown and what can only be described as a lightweight samurai loincloth.
And waited for death.
Then he grabbed hold of my… equipment…
and loudly declared:

"Okay! BIG DEEP BREATH IN!"
"…What?"
I inhaled obediently.
"And breathe out—!"
I exhaled slowly.
"One more time! BIG BREATH IN!"
"And out—"

Before he even finished speaking:
STAB.
"UGHHH!! THAT HURTS!!"
Ignoring my spiritual collapse, he kept pushing the tube deeper.
A master of timing disruption.

While I writhed in agony, he casually asked:
"Huh… have you ever been told you have an enlarged prostate?"
THIS is when you ask that?!
What was the backup plan here?!
"Actually yes, let's pause and surgically remove the prostate first"?
Gasping in pain, I answered:
"I had it checked last year! At THIS hospital! They said everything was fine!"
"Okay then, I'll press on your abdomen a little."

He pushed down hard on my lower stomach.
"Oh! There it goes!"
Apparently the urine had finally started flowing through the tube.
And in that moment…
an indescribable sense of accomplishment and brotherhood filled the room.

There it was.
Freshly squeezed, body-temperature urine flowing gently through a transparent hose into a collection bag.
Humanity had triumphed.
I exhaled deeply in relief.
Then the old man next bed answered with another monumental fart.
A duet of suffering.
And thus, I became a carp on the chopping board.

I lay on the examination table wearing my urine-collection apparatus like some kind of cybernetic squid.

The room looked exactly like a TV medical drama set: giant X-ray machines, glowing monitors, real-time ECG displays, incomprehensible machinery blinking with terrifying confidence.

The doctors inserted a catheter through my right wrist toward my heart.
Only local anesthesia.
Fully conscious.

So I could actually feel the tube moving through my body.
From wrist…
to chest…
to heart.

Meanwhile, the monitor showed my heart expanding and contracting with powerful determination.

Watching your own heart pumping live on a screen is deeply strange.
You think:
"That's me…"
But it also feels like:

"Nope. That's apparently some other wet creature."
When the contrast dye entered my arteries, the branching blood vessels lit up beautifully across the screen.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of the Japanese fishing technique ikejime—where fishermen destroy a fish's spinal cord with a wire to preserve freshness.

As I lay there with tubes threaded into me, I wondered:
"So this is what the fish feels like…"
Before the procedure, I had researched everything online.

Success rates above 99%.
Rare complications involving blood clots.
Every terrifying statistic available to mankind.

But despite all that, I still worried whether I could truly trust my doctor.
After all, I'd only met him a few times for ten-minute appointments. Behind the mask, I couldn't even properly read his expression.

I wanted to ask:

"Doctor… are you absolutely sure you know what you're doing?"

But instead my mouth automatically said:

"I'm in your hands."
Human beings are weird.

As the procedure continued, I became hyper-alert to every word spoken by the medical staff.
Then suddenly, one assistant exclaimed:

"Ah!!"

Another voice:
"Ohhh… wait, what's THIS?"

Then the chief doctor barked:
"No, no, this is bad!"

"I'm sorry, doctor! What should we do?!"

"Uh… could you hold this down for me, please?"

What? Did you say,"Hold this down."?!
DEJA VU！
Wait... it happened AGAIN?!

Immediately my imagination exploded.

"What?! What happened?!" I asked in panic.

And in my mind the doctor casually replied:

"Oh, nothing serious. We accidentally stabbed the heart a little."

"A little?! What is this, grilled chicken hearts on skewers?!"

Meanwhile, in reality, the doctors were simply chatting calmly about the images.
Finally, the assistant announced:

"I don't think a stent will be necessary. We're done here."

HALLELUJAH.

I had been released from the chopping board.
The procedure itself turned out surprisingly painless.
Much easier than expected.
No stent required.
Excellent news.

But the real suffering began afterward.

Back in my room, I was attached to three separate systems:
IV drip.
Heart monitor.
Urine tube.
I had become a deluxe hospital combo set.

That evening, Curly-Hair Guy returned.
"Okay, I'm going to remove the tube now."

Ah…
Freedom.
Wonderful.
Then—

without warning—

YANK.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

Once again:
The masterful timing attack.

"Okay, it's out," he said cheerfully. "Let us know whether you can urinate normally."

"…I'll go RIGHT NOW," I replied.

I rushed to the bathroom.
Positioned the IV stand beside me.

Relaxed.
And unleashed.

INSTANT AGONY.

"IT HURTS!!!"

The pain shot through my urethra like lightning.
Each attempt triggered unbearable pain, causing everything to clamp shut again.

Meanwhile, my bladder kept filling.
Pressure mounting.
Again and again:

Urgency → release → agony → CLENCH.

More urgency → release → agony → CLENCH.

For over thirty minutes.
Each attempt produced maybe two or three tragic little drops.
And there I stood…
alone in the fifth-floor hospital bathroom at midnight…

Crying Out Sorrow, in the Center of the Stall:

"HEEEELP MEEEEEE!!!"

No one came.

I returned to bed defeated.
Every two hours I tried again.
Same result.
Cold sweat.
Despair.

At one point, a doctor removing the pressure band from my wrist listened to my explanation and simply smiled sympathetically.

"Yes… it does hurt."

DOES HURT?!

That's the medical terminology?!
I began wondering whether my bladder might actually explode.
Surely there had to be a hospital report titled:

"Patient Detonated Internally While Peeing."

But eventually, as dawn began brightening the sky, I finally succeeded in producing an actual stream of urine.
Not much.
But enough.
I collapsed onto the bed and released the deepest sigh of relief of my entire life.

Ahhh…
I might actually survive and leave this hospital.

Thank you, Curly-Hair Guy…

And then, right on cue,

the old man beside me answered with one final, majestic:

BWOOOOOOOOOMP.

A fresh, beautiful morning has arrived.

<Notes>
I wrote this essay subjectively from the standpoint of a patient; however, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the doctors who conducted the examinations with professional expertise, to all the nurses who cared for and supported patients with compassion, to everyone involved at the hospital, and also to my family, whom I caused concern. Thank you sincerely for everything.