Today is Saturday. I will speak on Cancer Care in the US. Unfortunately, I am the next to the last speaker. I always prefer to get it done earlier, so I can then relax.

I listened to other sessions, they had 9 foreign guests, all doctors, talking about cancer care in Europe and Japan. I am the only one from the US. The person that was in my session was a male nurse, Per, from Sweden. He spoke about safe handling of chemo drugs. For the non medical person….long term handling of chemo drugs may cause the nurse, doctor, pharmacist to get cancer. I was glad he covered that, since I could just mention it.

Chris and I worked for months to develop some new software instead of using the old tired Powerpoint. We asked ahead if there would be internet available during my speech, for the short film clips, we were told “yes” several times, but on that day. It was only available in the lobby of the hotel, not the conference center.

I must say at this point that the conference/forum was excellent. The facility was beautiful, the planning and organization was perfect.  Tei and the Japanese staff that came from the hospital I visited the day before, took really good care of us.  It was impressive on many levels, there were 9 international speakers. I am honored to be representing my country, the USA.The conference was in English, with simultaneous translation, its very expensive. Everything was really top notch.

Due to having to remove the video clips and replace them with stills, my speech ran a little short and working with simultaneous translation, more difficult for me. I am used to sequential translation, you get more non verbal feedback from the audience.  Had more time for questions. Of course, I second guessed myself later, oh, I should have said this or that.  Although, I  got a good reception for my speech.

Afterward we had a party of the guest speakers and sponsoring staff. Before the party, Per, introduced me to his friend that accompanied him to Japan. We hit it off. When the party opened, he followed me and sat next to me. We had lots in common and I have not connected with another man like that since my husband.

The party hosts told me that since I was a radio personality, they would like me to be the entertainment. On the spur of the moment, I had to get up and tell something funny. I told the stories about when the first years of going to Japan, they would feed me, or try to, the fancy food. “creepy crawlers” stuff still alive, and I thought I would starve, till I found the convenie.

Next I told them about why they called me the Viagra Nurse at my last job. But I did the PG rated version. They loved it.

Soon it was time to catch the Shinkansen, bullet train to Tokyo. Rumi, that worked for me for 7 years in San Antonio as a manager.  During her employment she also  traveled with me to Japan for translation and business. She now lives in Nagoya Japan. She came and attended my speech. The plan was to all go together to Tokyo.  There were memorable times together. No matter how bad the Japanese businessmen were to us when we met with our distributor, we could always find something to laugh about when the stressful meetings were over, It created a bond for life.

I did want to stay and talk to the Swedish guy some more, but time to move to Tokyo. There we would have a reunion of the Rann Med ladies that worked for me.