Photographer Jason King was 48 and skiing in Tohoku Japan when he had a life-threatening medical episode. This is his story.
A few years back I was invited on an industry snow trip to North Tohoku. We had a good fun group, half of whom either knew Miss Snow It All or wrote for her.
Most of the tour was exploring the deep powder of Japan in less-discovered resorts. I thought myself a decent skier, but I hadn’t been in this kind of powder and it wasn’t as easy as I imagined so I generally stayed to the side of the pool-fills of fluff and had a good time on the mountain.
On this day we were heading to the last resort of the tour, Tazawako Ski Resort. We spent the transfer time on the coach watching Richard Gere’s Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. I was tired after “singing” with the group for a few hours the night before at karaoke (my first time) in Appi Kogen. We may have downed a few too many “courage-fuel” alcoholic soft drinks.
My first run at Tazawako was magical, lightly powder dusted hero snow. Two of the girls in the group, Jas and Jen, met me at the bottom and as we chatted about where-to next I dropped my glove.
I bent down to pick it up but for some reason I couldn’t. I kept trying for what felt like five minutes and when I stood up and tried to say “that’s taking a bloody long time,” looks of concern clouded the girls faces. When Jen asked me to say my name all I remember was shaking my head before slumping to the ground.
I did see Jas snowboard off and thought “thanks a lot.” What I didn’t realise was that she went for ski patrol, while Jen made me comfortable.
I passed out again after a few minutes, waking up for about ten seconds in the “blood bucket” being taken down to the main resort station. I woke again in an ambulance for a few seconds and then again at a hospital, but I strangely felt calm the whole time.
I had lost my speech, was paralysed down my right side and the only upside was that my “care centre” was impacted. It was like I was epically stoned the whole time, totally chill about everything. I had had a stroke.
The ambulance had to find a hospital with a stroke specialist. This took a while, but once admitted the hospital service was amazing. Besides the fact no-one spoke English and I didn’t speak Japanese nor could actually talk anyway.
No-one knew how long it would take for me to recover my speech or if I would be paralysed permanently. I was able to slur again within 48 hours but it would be another three months before I had strong speech again. Thankfully it took the first week of recovery to regain my ability to walk. But my short-term memory is now permanently shot.
The medical team gave me a 36 piece jigsaw puzzle I had to do daily to retrain my brain. The first time took me 90 minutes, now it takes 30 seconds, but it still gives me nightmares.
Travel insurance thankfully covered all the medical expenses (don’t travel without it) and a good friend and my mother both flew to Japan to be with me and talk with the medical team via Google translate. I was in hospital for a week then had to stay in the area for another week before I was allowed to fly. Covid then shut down Australia’s borders two weeks after I left Japan to return home to a month in a stroke-recovery unit.
I was unluckily lucky. My friends recognized what was happening immediately and I got help quickly, I was in Japan where hospital care is top notch, the Nihon Travel Agency team immediately got hold of my family and I had travel insurance to cover my expenses. I can’t thank all of them enough.
Weirdly though, I have one remaining side effect. A hyper focused obsession with the Akita Inu dog from the Hachi film and now own so many items with Japanese Akita dogs on them.
The medical team tell me my brain hit reboot from the last thing I remember.
This article first appeared in The Japan Issue FREE e-mag.
