Korea and Hospitals

Apparently, I will have had experienced Korea in every single imaginable way. Maybe except the marrying a crazy rich handsome young man and getting treated to millions of nice stuff? But let's not go there...

Two long weeks in a hospital. 

Two weeks in a hospital, that’s not too bad in itself. Two weeks in a hospital, for a Canadian we think two things: bland food and boredom. 

If you are from my hometown, being at the hospital also means Tim Hortons coffee, and probably an incredible amount of donuts coming in. 

Hospital also means family. Means friends. Means support. Means everyone you know finds some time to help you out, food to bring you and clothes from home as well as books to read and maybe - if you are me, - letters to write (I never really liked the email formula). 

This is the first time for me to be in a hospital for more than a usual checkup. And even as checkups go by, I think I didn’t even go to the hospital for general checkups until I was 21 years old (Canadian age): my mom worked in the health department all my life so I would usually just stay home even when taken with really bad colds, indigestions, viruses, name it, and developed this strong belief that anything can be rid of just by getting a great amount of sleep, loads of water, and love. And a comfy couch. And a mom. That’s all people need, really. I’ve always had the ingredients for good health, so I think I just naturally developed a very positive attitude towards everything in life. 

I am a very, very lucky girl. 

Sometimes I find that when I write things like that I sound like I’m trying to convince myself that I am lucky rather than thinking it, but no. I am really lucky. So many people compare themselves to the very apparent minority of amazingly lucky and well off people shown on TV and talked about by everyone. I’d rather openly compare myself to the great majority of the people on Earth who don’t have what I have, then I know I am very lucky. 

There is this friend of my mother who once said that when she feels down, she just goes to my hometown’s tiny mall and sits. She watches people. And sure enough, not many of the lots she sees are people she would use as a personal model. It’s not being mean, to compare yourself to people who you think have less than you, it’s a slap back into reality when you are about to turn into a whiny selfish git, who thinks they have nothing when in fact, you have so much. There. Said it.

Hospitals in Korea are different in many aspects to what I had seen and heard about say Canadian ones. For one, there is no wait. I did wait 4 hours at the emergency room before the doctor took time to inspect my wounds, but there had been 3 people who tended to it right away, taking X-Rays, cleaning with saline water, disinfecting the big parts and I was not waiting in a room with tons of people sick on different levels. I had a ‘bed’ and I only shared my room with two other people, both also having some cuts on differing degrees of ‘badness’. 

So I didn’t wait at the ER. I also did come by ambulance, so that might be a factor. They did make me wait a bit before they looked at my wounds, though, as I mentioned - probably because I had nothing broken, and this big hospital did have much more urgent patients to attend to. 

I heard that the fee for rigid the ambulance was 50, 000 won.

That’s $53CAD for the interested. 

How cheap can an ambulance fee be? In Canada, it starts at $500 if I remember correctly. This is crazy.

They make you buy your own needles tho. For a huge sum of the equivalent of CAD30 cents....

They transferred me to another hospital, a big 5 hours after I got to the ER. Apparently my case was not serious enough for me to stay and they didn’t have rooms for me there. So it was decided I was going to be moved. Thing is it was Friday night, past midnight and it was hard to get to see where they would have rooms for me. In the end I was moved right into a tiny private hospital beside the big Goryeo University Hospital where I had been waiting at. 

The small hospital was tiny. Looked like an old apartment building - and probably, at some point, had been one. The air conditioning in my room (two people’s room) is probably over 20 years old. It’s a weird place, but because of that, it is much cheaper, and apparently the doctor who owns it is really a good one. So far I am inclined to believe it. Not that my wounds require a very special treatment, but the choice to leave it open to avoid infection instead of stitching it and causing inner infection was a good one. According to him. According to my mother, and according to me, cuz I would have died of pain if they had tried to stitch that wounds, painkillers or not. 

The food here, is the complete opposite of Canadian hospitals. It is atrociously salty and often too spicy for my morning tastebuds. In the morning, I usually will not have a JJigae with salty as hell cucumber in hot sauce. I love spicy. I love salty. I don’t love when food is spiced up or salted up to cover the lack of taste, or the bad cooking os someone. I do like the cooking ladies though, they are cute. So I try my best.  They serve the food around 7h30am, 11h30am and 5hpm. That’s not the best for people like me who stay up watching baseball til past nine. I get hungry. 

On my first two days a couple of people came to see me. I was really happy. I had really felt at the other end of the universe, with no one to rely onto, but some people, especially a big sister from the baseball crew, really helped me a lot on many levels.

Then after, there was a big gap. People are working on weekdays. And when you don’t see people much, they think of you less. Then when you come back, they all of a sudden remember you and realize that «  oh I really missed you! » . But this is said without bitterness. That’s how life works, and it’s all good that way. 

I was kind of happy that I did not get too many guests. I really looked like crap. I had cheap face wash from the convenience store, and only wet wipes to wash myself. My foot was hurting too much for me to get around or even think of standing in the shower place. And I had to get by using a wheelchair. While I have become a fairly good wheelchair driver by now - I can walk now by the way :P - the hospital, as I mentioned, is made in the frame of an apartment building. Every single hallway is tiny as hell, and the wheel chair does not even fit in the bathroom, so I had to skip on one foot to get to and from the bathroom. The result is that my hair was beyond gross. And my face started breaking out. 

So no. I did not really resent the lack of visitors. 

I also have a TV in my room, so I had my evenings, from 5 or 6h30 to 9 or 10h30 already planned and well. 

Baseball.

We lost the first few games on the first few days I was hospitalized, so I was glad that people came to see me during the day. Then, when people stopped coming, we won some :) So everything balances out. 

From two days ago, the doctor tells me to walk and use my foot the most I can. I was glad to oblige, because I can’t wait to get back to my normal life. I feel like I’ve been isolated in some sort of in between worlds, where time passes dreadfully slowly. Then feels like it’s gone way faster than expected. 

As a matter of fact when we talk about walking, my mom tells me that I will probably have a very tiny calf since I haven’t properly walked on it for a long time. Says that muscles really shrink much faster than they appear. And sure enough I looked today and I have a tiny flabby calf. It’s really odd because Ive always have had pretty muscular calves, as opposed to more or less flabby thighs. Now I need to get this baby back to shape. 

In front of the hospital there is a hairdresser. All the while I’ve been here, feeling like I was rotting through the hair, I longed to get to the other side of the street and ask them to wash my hair properly. Hell, I’d also get hair treatment if I could. So yesterday that’s exactly what I did. Got a scalp treatment, a hair treatment and a nice shampoo. Plus, they set my hair nicely and I look human again. It feels wonderful.

Getting better, for the win.