Hospital Hiatus: Part One

Precaution: this post contains graphic images of my injury.

Hello everyone! Welcome to Part One of what will be a four-part series about my unexpected journey to the hospital, my thoughts on Korean healthcare, and my emotional rollercoaster throughout it all.

As most of you know, I spent nearly the entirety of the month of November in the hospital being treated for MRSA, a severe bacterial infection that affected my Achilles tendon. For those of you who haven't heard the story as to how it happened, this blog post is for you. If you've already heard how it happened, but also want to hear about my hilarious, trying, emotional roller coaster of experiences with Korean Healthcare, then you should also stay tuned. I must warn you that this is going to be a long and graphic narration of my personal experiences, so please keep in mind that my opinions and words are entirely my own and do not reflect Fulbright's, my colleagues', or any one else's point of view.

The beginning of it all:

Sunday morning

It all started with a blister I obtained from my hiking trip to Seoraksan with Emily during the Chuseok Holiday (read about it here!). So, as is natural for people to receive when exercising and wearing tennis shoes/hiking boots for long periods of time, I came out with a fairly large blister on the back of my right heel. I didn't think anything of it at first, as I have received multiple blisters before and they have always gone away in a matter of time. However, about a week or so after getting the initial blister, I noticed that it wasn't decreasing in size; in fact, it was increasing! I didn't hesitate and went to a local foot doctor in Gwangyang to get it checked out. The local doctor said it was due to strenuous exercise and I told him the story about hiking. He verified it and proceeded to drain the blister with a needle and squeezed the liquid out of the hole using his ungloved hands (as is rather common in Korea, unfortunately). The whole procedure of getting there, the doctor draining it, and leaving took a matter of 15 minutes total. Not a lot of time spent at the foot doctor, but I again didn't think much of it because Korea's healthcare is not as personal and attention-giving as it is in America. On top of that, I thought, "Oh yeah, it's just a blister, so it shouldn't take long to treat." He advised me not to exercise for a few weeks, wrote me a prescription I presumed to be rather useless, bought the medicine, and consumed as directed.

Side view

Here's where things get severe. Two weeks after I visit the doctor, I notice that there is still a bump on the back of my ankle (bursitis). I decide that I need to go back to the doctor and tell him what's going on. I go in, and he's immediately unhappy to see me. He assumes that I resumed exercising and didn't listen to his prognosis. Little does he know that I actually DID listen to him and have stayed off my foot for the duration he told me. He decides he could give me a steroid shot to reduce the swelling and be rid of me. I didn't even have time to tell him what I wanted to do before he ordered me to lie down and poke me with a needle. He prescribes another oral tablet, I take it, and pray for the best.

Fast forward another week: my foot isn't hurting too bad, I've stayed off of it, and haven't been wearing any shoes with backs on them for the past month. It's Halloween weekend and I head to Seoul to hang out with some friends. We decide to go to a club, but I make sure that my foot is totally covered (thick socks, long pants, bandaid over the wound). The blister wasn't open to begin with, but I took precautions anyway. Halloween weekend flies by (it was fun!), but what comes next would prove to be the most difficult month of my life - ever.

Sunday afternoon

I arrive back to Gwangyang early Sunday afternoon, and immediately lay down to rest. I wake from a three hour nap and find that my foot is throbbing with pain. When I look down, I'm in utter shock: my heel is black and blue, and everything below my right knee is swollen. I take a picture and send it to my mom who is thoroughly disgusted and advises me to check into the ER. So I call up my friend and ask her if she has some time to take me to the ER (this is around 9:30 p.m. Sunday evening); she agrees and we race to the ER. We arrive there and I show the doctors on duty, and they are also thoroughly disgusted. Unfortunately with Korean healthcare the most trained doctors are not on duty during the weekends, so I'm stuck with an intern taking a look at my infection. They decide that the infection is too big and that they should at least drain some of the pus and discharge from my foot before sending me off and telling me to return immediately tomorrow morning when the orthopedic doctor is in. Laying on the hospital bed in astonishment, I could barely take the time to feel three interns digging into my Achilles tendon and squeezing all around my foot to drain out the discharge. My friend couldn't stand to watch, and she left the room. Keep in mind that Korea doesn't really adhere to painkillers, so I was wincing with more pain than I've ever felt in my life for about thirty minutes straight. But oh, I didn't even realize what was to come...

Sunday evening

About two hours later my friend and I leave the hospital. My foot is thoroughly bandaged and I can't walk, let alone put a single ounce of pressure on my right leg. I'm put in a wheel chair and carried into my friend's car. She drives me back home and I cry when I'm forced to walk up five sets of stairs to my apartment room. It didn't matter anyway because I couldn't sleep all night. I woke the next morning in a hot sweat. I can't shower because I'm all bandaged up. For some reason I decide to put on my school outfit as if I'll just be stopping by the hospital to see the orthopedic doctor real quick and head back to school in the afternoon. BOY, was I wrong. I had NO clue that I would spend the next two weeks in a hospital bed going through the most painful experience of my life.

My friend Kat and I after
Sunday night's ER trip

Monday morning my co-worker drives me to the same hospital that I visited the night before. We check in to see the orthopedic doctor. He barely takes a look at it and says, "You're being admitted as an inpatient." My first reaction is, "What!? You didn't even look at it." But I honestly wasn't surprised because Korean healthcare is not very personal and doctors are always in a rush to get in and out, on to the next patient. If there's one major thing I learned about Korean healthcare throughout all of this, it's that physicians here HATE being asked questions. So different than America, where I can be a question machine and doctors patiently answer them to the best of their knowledge. Anyway, my co-worker freaks out (with good reason), and I do too. All of a sudden I'm racing to go through all sorts lab work: blood tests, urine samples, an MRI, and more picking at my foot. The day flies by and all of a sudden I'm an inpatient at the hospital, dressed in my patient gown and all. The evening is spent waiting for the results of the MRI and determining whether or not I would need foot surgery. Monday night changed my life forever. Thank God it was for the better.

Stay tuned for part two... to be released one week from today!

The beginning of my hospital life