From Acupuncture to the "Real Deal" Hospital

I would not consider myself an accident prone individual, but leave it to me to require serious medical attention in a foreign country from a kitchen mishap.  In fact, in the moments following the incident itself, I looked at my arm with a bit of yellow fatty tissue oozing out and couldn't really understand what had just happened. Luckily, I snapped to, covered it with a paper towel and put pressure on it. Then, I dialed my one good Korean-English speaking friend and tried to keep my voice calm while I asked him what he was doing. He immediately rushed over from a family dinner to help me get to the hospital. What a nice guy! About a half an hour prior to this, I had been with all three of my co-teachers and my principal at a dinner so they were probably all still trying to get home. My main co-teacher doesn't have a car and I’m not sure about the other one, so it would have taken much longer for them to come help me out. And thank goodness most of the people at the dinner were women, otherwise I might have consumed too much soju and bled out like crazy. I will spare you the pictures in this post.

I’m not sure what I was expecting out of a University Hospital emergency room, but I don’t think it was anything like being in one back in the States. There were adjummas and adjussis lying on beds half covered, feet hanging out and I’m pretty sure I saw dry blood smeared on the floor as we walked over to a bed. At the time, I couldn't help thinking, “Well that’s another good reason to leave your shoes at the door of your house.” The biggest thing that got to me was the lack of wearing gloves. I remember at my orientation medical exam, no one wore gloves to take our blood samples. I feel like in the US, no one will even touch you without wearing gloves. It could be our medical culture, I don’t know. The nurses or whoever was helping me did put on gloves to clean out the wound, so that was promising. But they had me lean my arm over a bucket on the floor to clean it out.  As soon as they opened up the wound with tongs to flush it out with liquid, both my friend and I had to look away. I guess neither of us would make good doctors.

After that, I got asked when my last tetanus shot was. Since I haven’t been to the hospital in over a dozen years, I couldn't even remember when. That shot wasn't covered by insurance so it cost 50,000 won or about $44.29 right now. Since I was in a foreign country and didn't want to have any other infection issues, I agreed to the tetanus, but I didn't realize it entailed shots to the bum so when my friend disappeared saying “good luck,” and the nurse looked at me, I huffed and said, “are you serious?” Good times.

Next was on to the stitches. The wound didn't hurt too much and the pain came in random waves( probably mostly from body shock), but I am really glad they numbed me up to do the stitches because I had to keep my mouth clamped shut to keep from yelling, “What are you doing? Do you know how to put in stitches?” They used a big hook-like needle and though it was only two stitches, it ended up being about four because he had to redo them. Even though I couldn't really feel it, I couldn't take my eyes off of that needle. I wonder if that made them nervous. I wanted to cry for my poor skin. And it was even worse when they cleaned it with an iodine solution. It was such rough brushing. I wanted to say, “Hey, just because I can’t feel it, doesn't mean you should treat it roughly!”

All in all, it worked out, but I can’t say I have warmed to being in hospitals at all. I avoided them in the US and I will continue to do so if I can help it. I can’t believe I made it in and out of the hospital ( x-ray, cleaning, stitches, tetanus shot, 1 day of antibiotics, etc.) for less than 105 USD. Thank you Korean National Health Insurance. So, the moral of the story is: No more trying to cut hard sesame snacks out of a pan. I even have a nice “reminder hole” in the fleece I had on at the time. I will definitely use wax paper next time. That is, if I’m not too traumatized for there to be a next time.