Like Death Warmed Up

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As the title suggests I have not been well. Death warmed up - it's the perfect way to describe not only what I've felt like for the past week but how I've looked. Korean teachers keep stopping me in the hall asking me if I'm crying and proceed to tell me I look terrible. Well, thanks. My kids are good though, they have picked up on the way I've been feeling and I think they get the vibe that I may lose it if I'm pushed too far. I feel bad though because I'm not the best teacher when all I want to do is curl up in the fetal position on the floor and cry for my mumsy.

So I am home sick today and I've spent the morning trying to get a hold of the right people to inform them of my absence, alas, an email will have to do. Koreans don't take 'sick days' and it's completely annoying. In every job that I've had I have been told to 'go home and rest' if I tried to come in sick. I think mostly because no one else wants to get sick but there is something very comforting about people wanting me to take care of myself. It almost immediately makes me feel better when someone tells me to 'rest'. Maybe that's why I've been sick so long here. Instead of listening to my body the consensus here is to work through it, the world may fall apart if I don't teach a grade 3 Grammar class. Eff that.

Yesterday I went to the hospital with another new teacher to get our medical testing done. Ok, just a warning nothing I'm going to tell you is going to make any sense. First I was told to meet at the school at 8:40 sharp, at 9:50 we finally got a move on. The hospital was alright, seemed clean enough and the attendants were all wearing matching outfits which I thought was adorable. We were weighed, they measured our height and my chest size. I noticed no one else had their chest measured, everyone else had their waist measured which makes a hellofalot more sense. After that we went to get our heart beats monitored. I layed on the little cot and the nurse put these little cold balls all over me - legs, wrists, tummy and chest - ok, still beating; good sign! Then we had to get our TB test. I'm not stranger to the TB test since Social Work placement requires TB tests every year. My Dr would scratch the inner side of my arm and if it swells and falls off I have TB (or something like that). But here you are called in to a room and told to disrobe from the waist up.. the technician kept asking me to take my brashere off and it took me a good minute to realize he was saying 'brassiere'. I stood in front of the machine and he told me to stay still, he ran into the other room the machine made a noise and I was done. It wasn't until after that I realized the machine was an x-ray machine and that I hadn't been covered with the metal sheet thing to protect me from the radiation. Kind of strange..

Finally, we had our blood and urine tests done. The urine test was the hardest test I've ever taken. No one really spoke English at the hospital, it was a lot of mime-ing and pointing, so when he gave me a tube with a litmus test and a paper cup I assumed the paper cup was for women to pee in since the toilets are on the ground and require steady squatting. I did my thing and handed back my urine filled tube and brought it out for the lab. They were all quite shocked that I had made it into the tube and asked me to put it in the basket. I put my sealed tube next to about 15 paper cups of pee.. I guess that cup was actually for women to pee in. There weren't any names or ID numbers on the cups so I don't understand how they know whose is whose. Blood was also taken sans latex gloves, and there wasn't any soap in the restrooms. I can't even talk about it.

So that leads me to my next adventure, my first trip to the clinic. the clinic looked like a lounge club with big leathery round sofas and a huge fish tank. There were also rows of blue twinkle lights strung around the ceiling that dangled down. The doctor's English wasn't great so telling him my symptoms was tough. A lot of acting things out like coughing and pointing to things around the room. He decided I needed medication and a shot in the bum.. apparently they love giving injections in the bum here.

I went into another room with a female nurse and she proceeded to smack my cheek quite hard, give me the injection and then smack it a couple more times, maybe it was for good luck. I was told this injection would make me drowsy - which it did. I had to go back to class and teach for 6 hours. I felt like I was floating on a cloud and sadly my students had to pay the price of my drug induced pseudo teaching.

I've started taking the medication and I'm hoping it will help. I have 4 days worth of pills which I take 3 times a day, they are nicely seperated in little packages for me to open and just pop. I also have a syrup type thing that is in a little pouch and I have to down that after I take the pills.

So far today I have watched "Happy-Go-Lucky", my missed episodes of The City and gossiped with Pamela about well, just about everything/everyone. I'm feeling sleepy now so I think I'll catch some extra zz's.

Love you all!
Ps- Congrats Tyler on your new little puppy Winston.. I can't wait to meet him!

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Comments

[The love of your life]

I adore your descriptors. I felt like I was actually in the twilight zone of hospitals. I'm interested in their practice...the shots to the bum...do you think that's something we could try out when you get home? Thought that would be a nice way to spice up our evenings! xoxo