By I’m at the airport waiting to check in and head home from my 2nd tour in Korea.
It’s been 2 1/2 years since I’ve seen my wife – making this the first time in Korea I’ve been homesick. Miss my cat too…
The most interesting thing was the inability to go home after 1 year – as planned – because I smashed up my hip and leg. Which left me hobbled for about 9 months and with pain for 1 1/2 years until they took the pins out.
It wasn’t fun, but it was interesting to spend 2 weeks in a Korean hospital.
The only real complaint I had about that experience was how stingy they were with the pain killers. I talked them into giving me about 4 shots that first day, but they must have been injecting Ibuprofen, because I was still in agony. I wanted morphine or a hammer upside the head. I wish I could passout…
I taught both adults and kids this time around. I didn’t learn much from the adults, because I controlled the topics we discussed in class this time around. It was teaching Korean teachers, and the job was demanding enough without getting annoyed like that. We stuck to discussing schools, education, and TESOL.
I switched to Korean elementary school when I had to stay another year after the accident. It was the first time I’ve taught young kids in a long time. It was nice. I admire elementary school teachers: I can do it for a year or two, but after that, I start to burn out. They take more energy or a different kind of energy than teens.
Now, it’s back to the US and looking for a teaching job in Georgia…
It”ll probably be another 10 years before I come back to Korea for an extended period (if ever). It was much better teaching with one of the government programs this time. Not having to worry about getting cheated on pay, hours and classes being changed all the time, and typical hakwon crap. — But it certainly feels good right now to be heading home…
9:29 pm on February 25th, 2012 1
“The only real complaint I had about that experience was how stingy they were with the pain killers.”
Tell me about it. When I was sent home after surgery, I was only given three days’s worth of pain killers, three doses a day. I was forced to ration myself. A dose would alleviate the pain for two and a half hours only. So, I had to spend an hour and a half in agony, waiting for my next scheduled dose.
“I wanted morphine or a hammer upside the head. I wish I could passout…”
Yes, exactly. I tried sleeping it off so time would go by faster, but I’d get nightmares/hallucinations when I shut my eyes.
9:30 pm on February 25th, 2012 2
And 2 1/2 years without seeing your wife? That must have been tough.
9:59 pm on February 25th, 2012 3
Teadrinker wrote:
For some yes. For others…they enjoy it.
10:09 pm on February 25th, 2012 4
America has 5% of the world’s population but uses more than 50% of the world’s prescription drugs.
So you did a tour(got paid by the U.S. Gov.) and got paid by the Korean government teaching English?
10:17 pm on February 25th, 2012 5
@4 – USinKorea is not getting paid by the US government. He was teaching in English getting paid by the Korean government.
10:27 pm on February 25th, 2012 6
USinKorea, perhaps you should be happy they didn’t dope you up with painkillers like morphine and its cousins.
The problem may not be that they’re too stingy but that American hospitals are too generous. Many of these substances are highly addictive, and it’s not just a few people who leave the hospital and find themselves painfully jonesing for a fix. Dependence on oxycodone (hillbilly heroin) often gets its start this way, just look at Rush Limbaugh. Or Matthew Perry with his painkiller addiction that required rehab. Or Michael Jackson. These are just some of the more prominent, but a lot of the hoi polloi have their untold stories as well.
Anyway, glad you’re all right and hope you’ll be in heaven when you rejoin your wife in HotLanta.
11:58 pm on February 25th, 2012 7
Atlanta huh? The Kangaji should be back around that area in April after finishing up some business in the Show Me State.
12:23 am on February 26th, 2012 8
My god! Look at the size of that prostate!
…or you must have had to pee like a fire hydrant during that x-ray.
12:41 am on February 26th, 2012 9
I’d have gladly risked a monkey on my back for just 1 day’s worth of morphine.
This was the 2nd time I broke that femur. (First time for the hip.)
They made me go through 2 sets of X-rays. I told the co-worker who was with me not to wait near the X-ray room unless she wanted to hear someone screaming bloody murder.
Yes, I used “tour” in the generic, non-military sense. This was my 2nd time around teaching in Korea for multiple years.
1:20 am on February 26th, 2012 10
Major back surgery and tylenol
US in Korea, don’t think Korea is stingy. I had two discs implanted in my spine. The surgery started at 1700 and they wheeled me back to my room at 2115 where they hooked an “on demand” pain mgmt system. So they said I could press the button when ever I needed relief, but no more that once every 20 minutes. When they put the button within my reach grabbed it and pushed the button and pushed the button and pushed the button – nothing I summoned the nurse who looked the machine over, but said she didn’t have a clue as to how to trouble shoot it. On a phone consult at 2200, the nurse anesthetist accused me of trying to abuse the drugs and at 0230 the nurse gave me some tylenol. Immediately on arriving to the hospital, my surgeon summoned my anesthesiologist where they convened at my bedside. The anesthesiologist opened the machine and found the nurse forgot to load the vial of pain med. After I told them what I though of them, they couldn’t wait for me to leave the hospital and they discharged me 84 hours after the surgery.
1:27 am on February 26th, 2012 11
USIK how on earth did you manage to break that where you did?
2:13 am on February 26th, 2012 12
11 – Ignorance….I’ll leave it at that…
They gave me an opiate drip too after the surgery to put the pins in. That was fine. I wasn’t in nearly as much pain then. The drip bothered me some because it made my heels burn – which they told me was a side-effect.
I just really wanted something strong that first day or soemthing to knock me out. I toughed it out fine the next day after the put the pins in, but that first few hours after the accident and the rest of that night was hell. (It was the same hell I remembered from 1st grade when I previously broke the same bone.)
2:18 am on February 26th, 2012 13
Also, I had a working hypothesis since 1st grade that people who work as X-ray technicians must all be sadists. I think that is a given law now. I don’t know how you could do that job day after day watching people in that much pain.
To get my X-rays, they had to raise my legs like a chicken wishbone and hold it there. And then again.
(Actually, I tried to bite the paramedic when they picked me up to put me on the stretcher. If he hadn’t had a crew cut, I’d have gotten a mouthful of hair.)
4:03 am on February 26th, 2012 14
Something about your story don’t rang thru’.! What are you doing in Korea without your wife anyway.
4:31 am on February 26th, 2012 15
#6,
Addiction?
Have you ever had surgery? Has a surgeon ever drilled screws into your bones, or maybe excised some bone with a chisel and mallet?
When I woke up from surgery, the pain was so intense that the only words I could muster were, “I need drugs”. They gave me a shot and put me on a morphine drip. It didn’t do much for the antibiotics injection, though. It really stung, like a chemical burn. You know the burning sensation you get when you’re cleaning engine parts or tools with gasoline and you have a scratch on your fingers? That’s how my whole arm felt.
9:13 am on February 26th, 2012 16
Best of luck in wherever life takes you
4:40 pm on February 26th, 2012 17
Good luck in your future endeavors. I hope the return home transition goes as smoothly as possible.
/look on the bright side. In Atlanta you will be able to get all the dope you want!
5:11 pm on February 26th, 2012 18
Teadrinker wrote:
Not counting oral surgery, the only surgery I’ve had was an appendectomy.
I’m guessing that an appendectomy doesn’t hurt as much, post-op, as someone cutting through your bones, but it still felt like they’d cut me open and ripped out part of an organ. They offered some serious painkillers, which were very tempting in the day or so afterward, but I just sucked it up and endured (and that was hard, since they would come in my room in the middle of the night about the time I was finally so exhausted that I fell asleep through the pain). That’s not to say that I wouldn’t want a bunch of morphine if I’d smashed a bone, though.
(I have had my jawbone cut open and a titanium stump hammered into my jaw for the purpose of getting a fake tooth to replace the one that had cracked and deteriorated prior to that.)
And I’m not saying USinKorea shouldn’t have had any, but he apparently had something and they weren’t working. Did he actually not get morphine or another serious painkiller? Or did it just seem like the morphine that he got wasn’t working?
Look, all I’m saying is that, looking back on it now, he might have been better off not getting more painkillers. He doesn’t know what morphine addiction looks/feels like, and he’s instead comparing not getting more painkillers with what he imagined getting more painkillers would have immediately resulted in. But there’s a reason why doctors are stingy with those drugs.
5:27 pm on February 26th, 2012 19
Went to the pain management clinic at Samsung Medical Center for 2+ years. They weren’t stingy with the drugs…. and I was thankful. Took me from wishing I was back home where I could eat a bullet to actually having a life.
Being back in the US, I’ve had several docs ask why I was given the combo I was one. I can’t answer that. I’m not addicted. I am what can best be described as comfortable…. meaning I can concentrate on finishing my education and living a semi-normal life (given the medical issues that can’t be “fixed”).
6:01 pm on February 26th, 2012 20
“Also, I had a working hypothesis since 1st grade that people who work as X-ray technicians must all be sadists.”
ER nurses as well, I know this one who gets off on sticking the tube down throats of those who come in after drinking too much.
10:37 pm on February 26th, 2012 21
#18,
Oh, come on.
That story about getting addicted after just a few days, that’s just an excuse made up by the PR firms employed by Hollywood celebrities and Republican pundits.
10:53 pm on February 26th, 2012 22
Tbonetylr wrote:
One of my drinking buddies in 2ID back in the day was a medic at the aid station. One of his daily jobs was treating guys for STDs. He said he could take the swab and just insert it a fraction of an inch into the ureter (pee hole) and that would have been all he needed to do. But he used to stick it up there 2-3 inches and twist it around – just to make guys never want to come back to get treated again – and he’d be recommending that they always use a rubber from that point on.
11:05 pm on February 26th, 2012 23
21. Agreed. There is no reason in the short term to be greedy with the dope.
11:33 pm on February 26th, 2012 24
My question is how did you manage to smash up hip and leg?
By the way, just found out there are big Korean markets called Super H Mart in Georgia.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/super-h-mart-duluth
Looks like getting korean fix won’t be a problem at all for you.
12:05 am on February 27th, 2012 25
Teadrinker,
“and Republican pundits.”
How can you say that about Rush Limbaugh?
It is easy for you to judge as you sit there being the high and mighty Teadrinker…
…but without walking in his shoes, you have no idea of the pain he is in…
…being Rush Limbaugh.
The drugs dull that sensation.
3:32 am on February 27th, 2012 26
Teadrinker wrote:
As I mentioned in #6, there are plenty of hoi polloi that also get addicted to painkillers.
You may not agree, you may think it’s silly, you may think it’s alarmist, but I believe that concerns about addiction may be behind the “stinginess” with highly addictive painkillers. Even back in the days when most medicines could be obtained in Korea without a prescription, pharmacists were restricted on handing out a raft of pharmaceuticals that were considered addictive, so I now it’s a concern on the radar of the various medical groups.
10:18 am on February 27th, 2012 27
USiK,
Now I don’t feel so bad about having ruptured discs. You probably felt what it is like to give birth.
12:33 pm on February 27th, 2012 28
Home. It’s nice…
So, OK, I’ll admit how I broke it…
I jumped from a place that was a little too high thinking it wasn’t too high anc I could roll with it. Didn’t work, obviously. One of those moments of stupidity you remember from time to time….most of them ocurring before the age of 18…
There are a few Korean supermarkets on Buford Hwy near Atlanta – where there are many foreign businesses. There is a huge farmer’s market that is half Hispanic/half Asian, mostly Korean.
On the addiction – I can see Kushibo’s point especially with the prescription of medication once you leave the hospital. Enough people in the US get hooked.
But Korea shouldn’t be so drug-adverse – especially doctors in a hospital. I needed a much stronger shot that first day.
2:20 pm on February 27th, 2012 29
Sorry to hear about your injury! Please get well soon.
It may not be a strictly Korean thing about the meds. I ran into multiple different varieties with doctors in Texas (Note: kidney stones = not fun. Even with morphine or Demerol). Some doctors are more conservative than others. Maybe something like “The book states X amount per kg of patient, regardless of actual perception of pain…” Other doctors maybe have more experience, compassion, etc.
But! Doraville is a great place to shop and eat… (IMHO, 2nd only to DFW on this side of the Pacific.)
2:57 pm on February 27th, 2012 30
I was just in Hotlanta about a week ago. Buddy of mine took me to this Farmer’s Market place; apparently there are several of them around. Probably the same ones USiK mentioned. Very good place for everything, fresh produce and seafood selection. Prices are pretty good too. We ate in this plaza restaruant, name was something like “Il Kwan” or Il something. Awesome joint! Great and large menu, their Soon Dae Kuk was to die for. Very worth it for the price too. I’m going to Dallas during spring break to gorge myself somewhere on Royal Lane or in the H-Mart Plaza area. Wirth a 5 hour drive.
8:30 am on March 1st, 2012 31
TBONETYLER #20: Hey, I was an ER nurse for five years. Nobobdy I ever worked with ever “got off” inflicting more pain on a patient. Any healthcare worker who does is violating the ethics of their profession.
Way too much is made of turning an otherwise normal person into an addict. If that were the case, 85% of America would be addicted to pain meds because we’ve all had to use them at one time or another. The truth is that when narcotics are used for their intended purpose (acute pain) they don’t pose the risk for causing addiction that a lot of people think they do. Pain is now considered the 5th vital sign and is supposed to be treated on the same level as an abnormal blood pressure or breathing difficulties. Anyone gone to a VA, had their vital signs taken, and then asked “what is your pain level?”
The people with addictive personalities will be the ones who keep coming back for another prescription long after the initial need has expired. That’s where the physicians need to step up and intervene.
8:42 pm on March 1st, 2012 32
Hello out there I got a situation where my wife have to go back to her home in Dongduchon So Korea next months because her 90 yo mother is very sick. Problem is she want to drag me twelve thousand miles for I to just sign for her a temp ration card while there. Man I been to that country so many times that I just don’t want to go now, so do anybody know if a military wife with ID card can get temp ration privileges without her spouse there so I don’t have to go, help.
9:02 pm on March 1st, 2012 33
Ask her exactly what she plans to buy on a military installation that she can’t get at Emart, When she can’t give a clear and reasonable answer, tell her to have a nice trip.
10:10 pm on March 1st, 2012 34
32. Most curious. What does she need on post so bad that she would bring you here just to gain access?
Bottom line, I am pretty sure she will not get a ration. I don’t really know why she needs one. She doesn’t eat Korean food?
12:04 am on March 2nd, 2012 35
Want good health care? Need surgery? Try Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.