<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So we're now February 1949.

IH: Yeah, came back. Then I went to the English school in church 'til August... no. I think around June, I think. Then...

TI: What church was this?

IH: Olivet Baptist Church. That's when they had an English school for the Japanese people. And then on June, I went to the McKinley High School summer school, and then getting into the high school, junior, on September. Then they took the x-ray for the chest and then found out I had TB, tuberculosis. And then I had already cavity in my right-hand side. So no excuse, just throw me into their hospital, tuberculosis hospital. That's in October.

TI: So this is while you were going to high school, they discovered tuberculosis, so they put you in the hospital right away.

IH: And then when go into the hospital, everything's free for the TB.

TI: I'm sorry, so who paid for it? Why was it free?

IH: Government.

TI: The U.S. government paid.

IH: Yeah. I mean, Honolulu County or Hawaii state. Those days it was still territory of Hawaii. So that's the only thing. TB is, everything's free. So then the following year, new medicine for the TB came out, so they try on me. And what happened is worked really good, and in three or four months' time, already cavity close. And then progressive is so fast, so the doctor was worried. That time was a bed patient, you've got to stay in bed twenty-four hour a day. And they waited, but still, everything improved. So one year... not one year. Eight months later, they put me into the outside. It's in a hospital, but outside. I can go to the cafeteria and can do some kind of hobby, everything.

TI: Do you know what kind of medicine it was, what the new medicine was?

IH: The Streptomycin just came out.

TI: What was it again?

IH: Streptomycin.

TI: Oh, okay, Streptomycin. So it was kind of a penicillin type of...

IH: That's a new type, and then it worked really good for me. And those days, just, they had a cloudy, show on the x-ray, they couldn't come out in a year or two years. Some of them are three years, stays in the hospital. But mine, exactly one year and one month, discharged.

TI: Now, given how much it had progressed in your body, did you have tuberculosis when you were in Japan also?

IH: No, we didn't know.

TI: You didn't know.

IH: Because we don't know.

TI: But I'm wondering if you had tuberculosis like this in Japan, what kind of treatment would you have received?

IH: Nothing. That's the reason, if I didn't come Hawaii, I was dead.

TI: That they wouldn't have been able to treat you the same way or find it.

IH: Because we didn't know. And then only find out, something show up on the body. They're coughing, something like that, then too late. So that's another thing, I saved. Then city-county helped me, and then, "Oh, you cannot work, so why don't you go back to the school?" So I went back to the McKinley High School, junior, second semester. And until finished high school, city-county helped me, government helped me. And still, I'm not in condition to work, so tried to find out what I can do. Then I asked, "How about sending me to the university?" They said, "No, that we cannot. Only up to high school." By the time I took a test for the entry exam for the UH, and again, my teacher said, "You don't have any chance, so don't take 'em." And then two days went to our test, and then nothing.

TI: So you passed.

IH: Passed. Said, "Oh, you passed." And then first two hour is math. That's, for me, just high school. And I did a kind of tricky way to do it, because it has a question and five answers, so multiple choice which one is. So if the last number is all different, only I figure the last number, okay. And then if a decimal points (different) place, just find the decimal point. Had a hundred questions, I did it one hour.

TI: [Laughs] So you figured out a way of passing the test without really knowing the answers. You could just kind of figure out just how the multiple choice...

IH: So I did it once, and then double check, one hour time, I finish. I hand in the paper, went home. Second day was English. Again, multiple choice questions, five words, and then you have to check which one. When I look at it, oh, almost same meaning. Nothing... you cannot tell how difference, all close. "Oh, that's okay, just a close one." Then again, one hour later. I cannot check, because just all guessing work. I hand in, and next day, my classmate said, "Hey, you hand in one hour time. Did you finish your work?" I told him, "That's a duck soup." [Laughs] All I did. Everybody's surprised, but I did guess. See, another lucky thing, I passed. Then the teacher was in the front, my one classmate came to, "Even Izumi passed. You could take it," something like that.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.