Way Back Wednesday - Four Vials, a Plastic Cup, and the Bathroom Floor

I visited a hospital a couple of times in Korea.  Health care semantics and general health care is different there.  For instance, they call doctors offices and hosptials, hospitals.  When Derek or I would call in sick to work, our boss would always ask, "Are you okay, do you need to go to hospital?" (Koreans usually leave out articles).  We would always decline, thinking that he was really talking about the hospital.  I always thought, I have a bad cold!  Why would I need the hospital?!

Health care in general is different, too.  Not bad different.  Just different.  I feel like even thought I was really uncomfortable when I went to see a doctor, it wasn't because I felt like they were incompetent.  It was just because things are different in Korea.  Very different.  I've posted about this before, Getting Glasses in Korea and today's bonus Way Back Wednesday, Visiting an Otolaryngologist in Korea.

This story is another example of feeling well taken care of while being COMPLETELY uncomfortable...

Around October of 2007, I was having some pretty severe heart related issues (After a thorough check up, it was determined to be stress related and nothing serious).  I asked my boss, Mr. Kim, to take me to a doctor.  He first took me to a doctor in town.  He thought it was stress and prescribed me a sleeping pill and a muscle relaxant.  They only mildly helped.  He then suggested that I go to a hospital to get further tests.

There was a hosptial in Sokcho, but evidently, it didn't have what I needed, so Mr. Kim made me an appointment at the hospital in Gangneung, our prefecture's capital, about 1.5 hours away.

Because Mr. Kim was a very busy man, he sent his wife to take Derek and I to the hospital (We went everywhere together.  Plus, he was my moral support and my back-up translator.).  She spoke decent English, which was good.  We needed someone who could navigate the unfamiliar system and translate for us.

I was really, really nervous.  Not only did I think I could die at any time (I was a little dramatic, but come on!  It was my heart!), but I had NO IDEA what to do, where to go, or what to say.  The doctors were very kind and took great care of me.  I did all kinds of tests.  One doctor was cute, if a little odd.  He and I were chatting during a test and he said, "I thnk it is really interesting that even though we are different on the outside, everything looks the same on the inside."  I think he was referring to the Caucasian/Korean differences.

After doing a few tests, they needed some blood for testing.  Not my favorite thing.  I get really light-headed when my blood is drawn, and I've even fainted once!  Compound that with being in a foreign hospital and being scared to death about death, and I had a real problem!

The area they had to draw blood was in a very open, public hallway.  There were about 4 desks set up with little arm pillows.  Derek stood next to me and held my hand as the nurse drew four vials of blood.  FOUR VIALS!

Then she handed me a plastic cup and indicated that I needed to give them a urine sample.  A regular plastic drinking cup.  No lid!  Huh!  So Derek and I walked down the hall to the bathroom, feeling increasingly light headed with every step.  As soon as I got into the bathroom, I knew I would have a problem.

Bathrooms are often different in Korea.  They have Western style toilets (the kind that we think of when we think of toilets).  These usually have a sign on the stall door pronouncing them "foreigners only."  And then they have traditional asian style toilets.  Asian style toilets are in the floor.  They only way to describe them is to say they look like a small urinal imbeded in the floor.  To use them, you have to squat.

Usually, squatting wouldn't have been a problem, but when you're already feeling light-headed, it makes things a little difficult.  I squatted the best I could and gave them a urine sample, but standing back up again increased my light-headedness to the point of almost fainting.

I needed to sit down.  But without a toilet there was no where but the bathroom floor to sit!  I decided that choosing the least dirty spot floor was better than fainting and falling randomly on to it.  I quickly looked around and found a decent looking spot in the corner of my stall.

I sat there for a minute or two until I felt like I couldn't stand it any more.  I tore off a piece of toilet paper to put over the cup (I thought it was gross to be carrying around a cup of open urine!), and stumbled out of the bathroom.  Mr. Kim's wife and Derek were waiting for me just outside the bathroom.

They could see that I was going to fall over and drop the open cup of urine at any moment, so she took the cup and Derek took me over to a waiting area so I could sit down.  I found 3 or 4 open seats so I decided to lay down across all of them.  If you could only imagine the looks I got from the other people in the waiting room.  First of all, I was the only horizontal one.  Second, I was white.  That fact alone created instant interest anywhere we went.

Long story short, I didn't faint.  I just looked stupid.  And all my tests came back normal.  There wasn't anything wrong with me.  I was/am just an overdramatic freak boardering on hypocondriac when it comes to my health.  But hey, my excuse is it's my health!  What's more important than that?! :D

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