Hotel MizMedi

It’s September. The leaves are changing color indicating that Fall is coming just around the corner. Where did summer go? And why have I started coughing? Hmm…must take more vitamin C.
A couple of weeks pass and it’s time for Chuseok and a 6 day vacation! My friend, RJ, and his friend stop in Korea for a brief 2 day visit and I proceed to take them to the hottest tourist spots in Seoul…which is almost impossible in 2 days. As we’re walking down from Namsan Tower, I start to realize that my cough and my overall health are not up to par. I part with my friends, and head for home.
It’s just a cold, right? I stop by a pharmacy the next day and pick up some cough medicine. By Thursday, I have not left the house and keep thinking that if I just rest a little more, everything will be alright. Friday rolls around and it’s time for everyone to get back to work. Except for me.
“Danny will pick you up to take you to the clinic,” Jane, the Head Teacher at my hagwon, did not want me to go alone after hearing my voice on the phone.
Danny knocks on the door. “Oh, my. Did you eat lunch?” I turn my head indicating no. “I’ll be right back.” I feel weak and so tired.
He comes back 20 minutes later with water and porridge. “We will leave for the hospital at 1:30, OK?”
He leaves to take care of some other business and I attend to making my lunch. Thirty minutes later, Danny arrives and so have hives on my arms from the porridge. Why did I have to eat the seafood porridge, first?
We make it to the hospital. First, I have to register with the desk on the second floor. Then we see the doctor on the first floor. I need a chest x-ray and a few other tests. We go to the third floor…blood work. Now to the fourth floor, chest x-ray. Then in for an EKG or one of the heart tests…the contraption looked positively medieval – like in the Pit of Despair in the movie The Princess Bride. Yes, it freaked me out. Our last stop was the ER where I received an IV of fun fluids which I’m sure were packed with vitamins and other helpful “stuff.” Danny tells me that I will need to stay in the ER for an hour and he leaves for about 30 minutes.
I’m supposed to rest. And how, exactly, am I supposed to rest? I have been coughing through the night for weeks now and they want me to lay completely flat on the hospital bed. I try…unsuccessfully.
Danny returns. “You have pneumonia. You will need to stay in the hospital for one week.” He shows me his cell phone in case he said the illness name incorrectly.
I stare at the phone hoping that he is wrong. “What!!????!!! Am I going to get fired?” Why that was my initial response, I’ll never know.
“They are setting up your room right now. It will be on the 5th floor.”
My mind is reeling. What have I done? How could I get this sick?
Danny and I take the elevator to the 5th floor. They give me my wrist band (which I will keep forever). They take my medical history – which is quite comical as the nurse speaks just a little bit of English. She asks when my first period was; which I told her. Her eyes became as big as saucers. “No, no. Sorry, sorry. When was your last period?” Te he he…
After already being poked twice by needles that day, she needs to put in another IV, but there is now a problem. My bracelets from Spain are in the way. I couldn’t get them to glide over my hands. “You can cut them.” As the words fell from my lips I could barely hold back the tears. Danny saw and said “They must be very special.” They only cost 2 euros, but I had been wearing the bracelets since I bought them in Spain. They were special, because they reminded me of how I even ended up in Korea. The nurse cut them off and gave them to me. I threw them away despite the fact that I loved them dearly. I thought that I shouldn’t be so attached to “things” anymore and I don’t regret throwing them in the trash to this day.
After the IV was inserted, and a few other shots injected both intravenously and in my arms, and one in my butt (or as the nurse referred to it – muscular), Danny made sure all was well, and then headed for home. I will forever be grateful to Danny, our General Manager, who stayed by my side for almost 6 hours while I was tested, poked, and dragged all over the hospital. If he would not have been there, I would have been a complete disaster.
Now, I was alone, in a hospital, where English is definitely NOT the primary language.
An hour passes and Jane arrives with some things from home. How mortifying that my boss has seen my underpants!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! She is delighted to tell me that even though I forgot to mention it, she has brought my face lotion. This is not a necessity, but by the fourth day I was certainly glad to have it. We talked for a little bit, and then she left and again, I was alone.
The first night I did nothing but cough. I was so nervous to keep the other patients in the room awake. Nurses kept coming in and checking on my temperature and IV every two hours. It’s always lovely to get a shot in your butt at 1 in the morning to help reduce your fever, right?
At 4 in the morning, the woman who was next to me came right in front of my curtain and said “Excuse me! Excuse me!” She brought me tea to help soothe my throat and it was a lovely gesture.
The next day I had another visitor, Soo, one of my teaching partners at the school, and her husband. She brought me some vitamin C drinks, a sandwich, and a delicious cinnamon latte. She was worried about the food…oh, the food.
You are served three meals a day at MizMedi hospital (as I’m sure is typical everywhere else). All three meals include soup, rice, and then some other main dish. Yes, rice three times a day. And usually fish in the morning…but I had had an allergic reaction to seafood when I tried the porridge Danny had brought me. So two more times after the porridge, I also had hives again. Yay!
The second night I hardly got any sleep. I did not want to wake the others so I coughed into my comforter hoping to stifle the sound. I stayed up most of the night and again had to receive another “muscular” shot to reduce my fever.
Day three brought a couple of visitors including my friend King, and Pastoral Assistant Jang from my church and my friend Bebhinn, who stayed to watch one of my favorite Korean TV shows with me. The time spent with Bebhinn was one of my favorites. When we watched the TV show, both her and I could laugh at the show despite the fact that we had no clue what was being said. A woman in a bed two spots down was watching the show as well with some members of her family, and would laugh at the same times. We seemed to take notice of each other and appreciate how we all loved the show together.
Despite the fact that I had kind and lovely visitors that day, the third night was the absolute worst. My fever had returned again and I had to get yet another shot in the ass. Right before the shot was to enter my “muscular” my body convulsed into a coughing fit. The nurse did not wait for me to finish, and jabbed the needle into my skin causing me to yelp like a small puppy. OUCH!!!!! I started to cry. The nurse left after apologizing and tears continued to flow.
I was feeling absolutely awful and worst of all lonely. I understood that the conditions made it impossible for my family to be here but I missed them dearly and wished someone could be with me. More than anyone, I wanted my brother there, because I knew he could make me laugh no matter how bad I was feeling. When I started to lose hope, I said prayers for my friends and family. And then I prayed for all of my students. I started to get sleepy, and I finally closed my eyes to rest.
Monday morning, the phone rang. It was my mother’s voice and boy was it LOUD!!! “Marybeth!!!! It’s MOM!!! We got through!!!” I can only imagine how the ears of the poor people at the desk are probably still ringing. I talked to my parents for a bit and then went back to sleep.
After the third night, I decided it was time to do something outside of my small area. I grabbed my laptop after dinner and headed for the wi-fi zone. It was time to watch some episodes of my favorite Korean drama, Sungkyunkwan Scandal. So, from that night forward, every night after my dinner of rice and soup and whatever else, I would watch my show. The nurses, started to learn where to find me when they needed to give me medicine and check on me and a few of them and I were able to talk about the show I was watching in regards to which actor was (is) the cutest.
I started to get settled at the hospital and created a routine. 7 a.m. Breakfast. Then go to get a chest x-ray or go back to sleep. 9:00a.m. doctor visit. 9:30a.m. Unit’s call. Sleep some more. Then read. 12 p.m. Lunch! Read. Read. Read. 6 p.m. Dinner. Check the internet and watch Sungkyunkwan Scandal. I ended up reading 3 books that week too.
During the middle of the week, the nurse told me that I again had a fever. She said she would wait an hour before giving me a shot to see if it would go down. I decided not to panic, and instead grabbed my ipod from the nightstand and listened to classical music to relax, hoping that the beautiful, soothing music would somehow help reduce my fever. When the nurse came back, to my surprise and hers, my temperature had gone back to normal! Yay!
The rest of the week was met with more shots, a hand that became extremely fat due to the IV, luckily two showers, and a few more visitors – Brittany (who came twice), Gordon, Kelly, and the Korean teachers - Kelly, Stephanie, Esther, and Jenny.
After being in the hospital for 9 days, I finally checked out.
When I returned to teaching, it was wonderful to see the look on my students’ faces. I couldn’t believe how excited they were, especially my afternoon kids – they wanted to know everything!
Doctor Lee and the nurses on the fifth floor at MizMedi took very good care of their patient in bed four in room 508. And while I never hope to repeat this visit, I will never forget my stay at the Korean hospital.