This is why it came to be, and later you'll find out why I'm not crying tears of disappointment.
(background info: came down with cough and dull headache on Sunday)
Wednesday:
7:30am on day of alleged departure: stressful acquisition of taxi with suitcase in tow. seriously? you're going to yell at ME while you're blocking two lanes of traffic and I have a suitcase to put in your trunk. Into the back seat I flung my suitcase, crawling in after it. Becky followed. Squished and stressed, we made it to school.
7:50am: Visit to nurse's office. Wanted her to check my ear to see if it was infected or just congested. Woke up with a really full sensation in my right ear. She scheduled me an appointment for 10:10 just around the block.
8:30am: try to check in online to my flight that was scheduled to be at 8:50pm that evening. No luck. Uh ohhhhh. Write an email to my travel partners, alerting them.
9:00am: 5th grade arrives. we have an
9:45am: Sara (grade 5 teacher and travel partner) comes to pick them up and says "I got your email. I tried it too, and it didn't work because we bought them through a flight finder. I emailed you the phone number to call - it's our airline at Incheon airport."
9:50am: call airline at Incheon. Discover flight scheduled for MARCH and not January. (I'm a dumb dumb) Proceed to FREAK OUT. Call and ask about rescheduling. Costs are over $1,000 (tickets from seoul to hong kong are generally $300-500). Have a desperate need to pee.
10:15am: arrive at Dr.'s office. Am seen within 5 minutes. Visit with doctor lasts less than 2 minutes and is free of charge. She says "No infection. Membrane OK"
10:25am: return to school. Two Skype calls to Priceline and one email to Kayak later, I've cancelled my initial (incorrect) flight. Only a $25 charge. HALLELUJAH. Spend roughly the next hour and 15 minutes on flight finders trying to purchase a ticket around the same time but on a different airline. Find reasonable prices (similar to what Sara and Sarah paid). Input payment information. Price changes to nearly $1,000. Begin process over again. Same thing happens.
11:25am: Tell Sophie (band teacher, classroom neighbor who's been on flight finders to help me find replacement tickets) that I've given up. Email travel partners of disappointing news. Feel like a ninny.
The rest of the school day passes.
5:45pm: take a taxi, solo, with my suitcase… back to my apartment. Not a walk of shame, a taxi of disappointment and shame (half joking about the shame.)
6:30pm: Quick visit to pharmacist in my apartment building. He gives me some tea and pills. sweet.
7:00pm: taxi with Jen and Charlie to Meyong-Dong for Jen's laser eye surgery. Drink weird tea mixed with green tea while Jen gets her eyes sliced open. Pressure on ears increases. Sleep most of the way home in the taxi.
11ish: back in my apartment. In incredible pain. Resist tylenol, because I'm sort of dumb. Try dropping warm olive oil in my ear and resting on my side for 7 minutes. Some relief comes, but not enough. Try laying on a steaming towel. Same result. Call father in tears. (I could not survive without Skype credit). Pops tells me to take the tylenol and mystery pill Jen gave me (which turned out to be sudaphed, thank the lawd above) and lay down with my painful ear facing up. I do just that, accompanied by a crappy netflix movie. Wake up every 15 minutes or so to popping or sliding noises in my ear, accompanied by painful and odd sensations. Sit up, tip head other way…. drain weird colored things onto my tshirt. excellent. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep.
9am Wednesday: Meg P (my downstairs neighbor and school art teacher) comes up to do Ear Candling on me. I wikipedia'd it… read it didn't work… but thought, "I've got nothing to lose, so why not". After that yields minimal and odd results, I decide to seek legitimate health care. Meg commits to accompanying me - BLESS HER. I call dad, cry some more (it's fine… I guess I cry a lot).
11:21am on Wednesday: In the waiting line at the Emergency Room at some hospital near by. This happens after a taxi ride to a closed hospital and two phone calls to my school nurse. While at the hospital we are tracked down and minded by many incredibly kind Korean nurses and doctors. Wait in an area, walk to get some X-rays, go back and wait in area. Random man comes and motions for us to follow him. Alright. Why not. We go up into a desolate part of the hospital (because it's a national holiday, the only thing open was the emergency room) and find an ENT doctor. Incredible. Seriously? all the lights off except in this office… nobody else up there… they must have called him in just to see me. He looks in my good ear with the image up on a TV screen. Takes a photo. Next up, bad ear - same thing. HOLY LORD MY RIGHT EAR LOOKS LIKE THE LAGOON IN PRINCESS BRIDE. He tells me I've got acute otitis medium, but also later says that it's severe. Perforation but no rupture, infection in the middle ear.
12:45pm: Meg goes with me to McDonalds (because that's what I want when I'm unhealthy, duh!). We walk home. I am now in recovery mode.
Total of $155 for an X-ray, ENT visit, and medication - Without insurance!
For the record, I do have health insurance… but the card is in english and I was at a fully Korean hospital, so that was NOT getting me far.
While Meg and I were nomming on our Spicy Chicken Fingers (Hell YEAH, Korea has those at McDonalds) she said "Seriously, though, everything happens for a reason. When you mistakenly scheduled your flight for March… this is why." and I stopped and thought about it. I'm sure we've all heard that phrase many times, trying to poetically legitimize shitty stuff, but seriously… there was a reason. I already am at moderate risk of hearing loss, and I can't imagine how awful and terrified I'd be feeling going through this in Hong Kong after FLYING with intense pain.
So that's why this is all okay.
Silver linings.
I get to be lazy without guilt.
I get to legitimize renting iTunes movies (because I only do that when I'm sick).
I get to recover at my own pace.
I get to maybe keep my hearing?
I get to save my monies.
I get to go on an eating adventure around Seoul! Once I'm recovered, Melinda and I mapped out some yummy Korean and International restaurants that we normally wouldn't seek out.
Everything happens for a reason.
And seriously, big thanks to the Korean health care system for being FREAKING AWESOME. I had such anxiety going into this situation. Google translate only does so much (and you best believe I DID use that resource.)
Even bigger thanks to Meg who went with me and figuratively held my hand through all of this - even when they vacuumed out my ear! It was scary to think about going to the hospital by myself with a potential language barrier but she came with, calmed me down, and monitored everything going on. It was invaluable to have her along with me. In the international community, we really do become a family. Baby-sitting for new mothers so they can be prepared for their in-laws' arrival, cooking meals for new mothers, shepherding each other to laser eye surgery, loaning CostCo membership cards to each other (because all white people look the same, I guess), moving each others mattresses down to the main floor when stairs aren't doable…. I work with some great people and am lucky to have them as family, especially when I've got such an incomparable family back home. Standards are high in my life, and Korea and my friends/family aren't disappointing.
:)
P.S. this is a photo of a normal ear drum:
and this is a photo of MY ear drum (after it had been vacuumed out.) You can see some blood/discharge coming out of the tiny hole on the lower right. Because it was in video, I could see the discharge moving with my heart beat. Weird.
