One minute I'm resting comfortably on my hospital bed, the next I feel the chills creep up my spine and my whole body starts shaking uncontrollably. Freaking out, I reach for the nurse call button. But wait — what's the Japanese word for "shiver" again?
I fumble for my iPhone to look up the word. The handset keeps slipping from my grasp as my trembling fingers attempt to type s-h-i-v-e-r. After what feels like an eternity, "furueru" flashes across the screen. I call the nurse.
It turns out I was experiencing the side effects of my treatment for a post-surgery complication. The nurse would have checked on me anyway if I'd pressed the call button earlier, but after weeks of an "intensive Japanese refresher course" in the hospital, my first instinct was to reach for Google Translate whenever a word or piece of medical terminology eluded me.