"119"

may 30th - "119"
I met up with my friends Jessica and Belinda this weekend to catch-up. I hadn't seen Jessica since she fell in a hole at the D.J festival. I learned through the grapevine that she had been very, very ill after that and hospitalized for a full week. I felt like a terrible friend for not knowing and not visiting her in the hospital or anything. I found out she had had peritonitis, something like all your organs are inflamed and hate you. Terrible stuff. She almost died, and might have had her mother not called the U.S. embassy and fought to get doctors to do the necessary tests.

In my opinion, Korea is a seemingly modern nation, priding itself on its technological sharpness and leap to advancement since the Korean War, while in fact, it's quite stuck in the 1950s in many areas. I assert that this is the case with some aspects of Korean medical care. Allow me to site a few examples. Doctors do not question each other here, as everyone must save face. There is no option for getting a second opinion if they learn that someone has already examined you. And nurses? Jessica's Korean friend had to literally bribe nurses to take care of her. Administering drugs is the nurse's sole purpose here, excluding basic care like helping you get to the bathroom, bringing you a blanket or glass of water, etc. They expect that your family will take care of such needs. But if you have no family... yeah, you're pretty much f*cked.

Payment is their biggest concern, apparently, certainly with foreigners. The night I met up with Jessica, we ate Thai food and she started to feel a little sick. She was on antibiotics still from her hospital stay and had only been discharged a week ago. She started to feel ill and asked if she could go take a rest at Belinda's house. We brought her home but by then she had started shaking. She began to suffer the same symptoms she had been hospitalized with a week ago. We were all scared. I ran down the hill to get a taxi as we figured that would be faster and cheaper than calling an ambulance. We asked the taxi to bring us to the closest hospital. I said "Il, Il , gu" which means "119", the Korean equivalent of "911." He understood and got us to an ER within ten minutes. At the ER, they continually asked us for money. Belinda and I had money but our ATM cards don't work after 11pm. Jessica had no money after being docked pay from missing work last week and paying a million won for her hospital stay. They refused to do anything until we could give them money. We pleaded with them to "DO SOMETHING!" as Jessica lay there doubled up in pain. They asked us what we would like done. As if we knew!? After about an hour of trying to explain that she had been sick last week and asking them to contact the other hospital where they had her medical records, we requested an ambulance to transfer us there. We had to pay cash for the ambulance.

At the next hospital, they did remember her which was a relief, but they just sent over doctors and nurses to push on her stomach, asking repeatedly,"Does this hurt?" It was obvious it was causing her terrible pain. They drew blood without gloves and let the blood shoot out onto the floor. The blood pooled on the floor next to me and was mopped up hours later by a cleaning lady. I had seen some pretty terrible medical treatment as an HIV case manager back home, but this was a new level of horrific. Jess had chronic diarrhea and almost constant urination and was unable to walk at this point. I got to pull out my social work skills and advocate through the night for her care. I also had some on-the-spot CNA training, as I was basically her nurse, helping her to use the bedpan and emptying it myself many times. They gave her a saline drip, and an expensive ultrasound on her belly and sent her home at 9am with new antibiotics. I thought of canceling my health insurance as it appeared that I'd been wasting my money the last 8 months. Her insurance covered only a 1/4 of the cost of her ER stay that night. The whole experience was nightmarish.

Jessica went in the hospital again that Monday when she fainted at work, but is thankfully feeling back to normal now.


may 27th - "wet n' wild and employer-sponsored"

My employer took everyone out for galbi this Wednesday after work. There were about 25 of us, foreign and Korean teachers and our management. Unlike our other work dinners thus far, this one included many, many bottles of soju and beer. It was Esther's last week and she insisted on doing a shot of soju with everyone that would concede. I must admit I was a big encouragement.. Since it was on our boss, we kept ordering more and more soju until the restaurant owners eventually cut us off. (We had a private room, but we were gettin' pretty rowdy by this point.) Our boss, "Slick Rick," as we fondly refer to him, said, "Let's take the party back to GDA!" The story ends with everyone jumping in the school swimming pool with our work clothes on, our boss included. In the morning we found out we had dyed the pool water with color bleeding from our clothes and had left the pool littered with beer and soju bottles. I'm sure we won't be taken out to dinner again for a while, but it was one of the best times any of us have had with our coworkers and was truly great for morale.

"pee, pee, everywhere!"

may 4th and 5th:

This was my first long weekend since the end of January and a long-overdue break. I now realize that I didn't appreciate the earned time off I had at my last job, or the ability to call in sick or take a "mental health day" when needed, (which was quite often.) At GDA, you can't be sick or take time off. It's just not an option. If you are sick enough to be in the hospital, they will dock your pay 1.2x the usual rate, 1.5x without a doctor's note. I haven't called in sick yet. Although, I was sick my entire long weekend. Go figure.


may 9th: "d.j. festival"

I went to the 3rd Annual Seoul World D.J festival on the Han River. It was mainly techno music, which all starts to sound the same to me after a while, but all in all, it was a great time. The crowd was groovy, I danced a lot and saw some people getting loose. It was nice to see Koreans in a different light and meet more people that are part of the music scene in Seoul.

Most memorable event at DJ fest:

I lost my camera and left a description at the lost-and-found desk with a guy named Frederick. Later that night I had gotten separated from my friend Jessica. I called her around 2am to say I wanted to go home. I found her in a dark parking lot. She had fallen into a concrete pit, suffered a large gash across her foot, and had been sitting there gushing blood for over a half-hour. I ran from the parking lot back to the festival and went to the english-speaking booth where I had earlier reported my lost camera. After a few failed attempts, I did find the paramedics. It appeared to me that the people the paramedics were busy helping were just drunk. After politely asking for help and trying to look desperate, I demanded their attention. I squawked that my friend needed help but I couldn't carry her. (I use "squawk" because I think I was literally flapping my wings up and down at this point.). Blank stares. I shouted, "These people are just drunk! Give them some water, they'll be fine. Please help me! Pee, pee, everywhere!" (because "pee" is Korean for blood). Frederick, the guy who had earlier taken my information about my camera turned around and recognized me. He asked me where my friend was and we took off running. This sweet, super-skinny Korean boy gave Jessica a piggy-back ride back to the paramedics. Awe.

Jessica had stitches the next day, but was okay. Later that night, Frederick called saying he had found my camera. I asked him to hold on to it for me until I could pick it up. I got my camera back a few weeks later. Strangers aren't always this nice to people here, but I've found the return of lost items is standard in Korea. I wanted to share this story because it's just plain sweet, and it gave me a bit of relief that there are still people that return things to the lost-and-found and carry strangers through parking lots on their backs.

may 16th - "dance, dance competition"

My recruiter organized a mixer for his recruits and their friends in Korea, just designed for new people to get connected to other foreigners in Seoul. We went for the food and drinks. They had some cool prizes though, like a trip to Je-ju Do Island for two. There was a dance competiion for the tickets, and my friends urged me to compete. I made top five and had a "dance-off" with the other top competitors. I say I got third place. :P