Write, Off to Work

I'm heading to work in a few minutes, and I'm going to meet my new boss. My real boss assured me that he is a "wonderful man," but he doesn't know that at all. From what I understand, he met the guy on Friday when he made an offer on the school - and my boss followed the advice of The Steve Miller Band: "Go on, take the money and run." So he did. Only he's not running until tomorrow, so I'll have one last day with him at the school.

I'm sad. Like pure and simple straight up sad.

I was out for a quick dinner after work on Friday night. The table next to us had four women grilling up their meat and drinking up their soju. Eventually two other men joined them. The women seemed happy to see them - one of the fellows made like he couldn't find the door to get into the plastic wall encased patio we were sitting in (can you believe they're forecasting for minus 2 degrees Celcius tonight?!?) and the women laughed at his little comedic entrance. At one point not too long after I said, "Ahhh, settle down!" toward the table of six, not loud enough for them to hear by any means, but more for the benefit of my boyfriend sitting across the table from me who I was having trouble hearing amidst the laughter and enthusiastic "GUMBAEs!!" coming from behind him. They certainly were having a good time, that other table, whereas I was sporting red swollen eyes and trying hard not to cry more while recounting the miserable day I'd had at work.

Soon, the mood at the table behind us shifted - and one of the women was clearly unhappy with one of the men sitting across from her. The other members of the party hushed up as she got louder and angrier, filling her speech with a lot of "YAs!" and "dog babies" through gritted teeth. At one point, she threw her napkin across the table toward him and started to gather up her belongings like she was leaving, but her friends reached for her arms and convinced her to sit down and stay, and she seemed to calm down for a moment. But the guy across the table said something that displeased her and she "YA'd" him just once more. He stood up very suddenly, knocking over his stool, and picked something up from the table. With the fluency of a major league pitcher, he wound back and hurled whatever was in his hand as hard as he could, which connected with precise accuracy on the woman's head. Chaos ensued, with all the women screaming and the other man ushering the attacker out the door. The ladies checked the injured woman's head (her ball cap had protected her well) and the object - what I thought was one of those heavy soju shotglasses - which could have been perhaps lethal, turned out to be a metal rice bowl.

The women all sat in stunned silence for a long time. All of them were crying, but the one with the sore noggin and the woman sitting next to her, holding her hand, cried the hardest.

I feel like that woman. I feel like I've been hit in the head by a sudden unexpected object, and the sadness I'm experiencing is a bit overwhelming. I'll write about the hweshick later, but after it I just felt exhausted. I turned off my my phones, crawled into bed before eleven on a Saturday night (unheard of!) and slept until the sun was well up in the Sunday morning sky. I kept my phones off all day and hid myself away in my apartment.

But now it's time to go to school and meet the new boss. Unable to sleep much last night (about 3 hours or so) and uninterested in eating anything since Saturday night - I'm feeling sad. Sad sad saddy sad. One of the drugs I'm taking for the shingles is an anti-depressant, enafon - and I'm glad for it. Praise Jeebus glad. Without it, perhaps I'd be a weeping blob of sad, instead of a walking semi-functioning mess.

There are lots of questions. What's the new guy like? Am I going to be three times lucky? (I've been incredibly lucky to have really good bosses two times already. I worry I might have run out of luck.) My initial inclination is to quit; give my notice and leave at the six month mark in December. That's still the leading horse in this race of unknowns. My boss expressed happiness at the work party on Saturday. I can imagine what he's feeling. He must be so relieved to not have the daily stress of this job. I think when the time comes I'll be elated.

But, now I'm sad. And I have to go to work. Before I do, let me say there's no point in laying blame - but let's do it anyhow. If The Princess hadn't started this all,...

To be continued.

Upside Down

I wrote about some of the turmoil that's going on at my school in a recent post. I got more of the story the following day and it goes a little something like this.

My manager, The Princess had indeed approached my boss about buying the school from him and apparently he said it was a good idea. I didn't know that he had initially approved the idea. Then a couple days later he changed his mind and told The Princess he wanted things to stay the way they are. Ever since my boss bought the school from Karen, there have been ongoing financial woes. I never knew the details, and since I was getting paid - even though usually not in full nor on time, I was eventually collecting- so I didn't want to pry. After I heard The Princess was interested in buying the school I was hopeful that things aren't as bad as I'd thought. We have picked up more students in the past few weeks, so I guess things are turning around. The Princess handles all the books, and she's a pretty savvy lady - so I'm sure she wouldn't be wanting to sink her money into a school that was bound to fail.

She wasn't pleased that my boss decided he wanted to keep his school, and made the decision a few days later that she wanted to leave and open up her own school with her sister in early 2010. This angered my boss, who really relies on her. She's a good manager and really does well with parents who bring in their kids to check out the school. I don't know why my boss doesn't take on more responsibility in the PR department; he's an amicable fellow - but I think his confidence was shaken by having his previous school, a large downtown hagwon that employed around fifteen teachers, go under in the spring of 2008.

So he decided The Princess is selfish, which is surely true, but I can understand how she's thinking. When she originally agreed to work at our school it was in a managerial capacity. She didn't want to teach classes. If you've followed this blog for awhile, you'll know I used to lament that the size of out school didn't warrant a full time manager - and indeed, for a short time we did have enough teachers to cover all the classes and so The Princess got her wish and was able to spend a large portion of her day sitting at her desk examining her fingernails. That didn't last (I can't remember why. At this point it's all fuzzy - I feel like we're gone through a billion teachers) and she's been back in the classroom for months. Still, on her busiest teaching day she only has three and a half classes - so, I'm not going to cry her a river. Anyhow, she had decided it was time to move on, and told my boss she would be finishing up with us at the end of the year.

Even still, my boss was pissed off. And worried. He went back to The Princess a few days later and told her he'd changed his mind: he'd decided to sell the school. Only thing was, he wasn't willing to sell it to her. (He probably phrased it cleverly - like "I hope you'll be happy in your future business, now that you've made up your mind to leave us I've decided I want to leave as well - so I'm looking for someone (not YOU) to buy the school.") This, of course, enraged The Princess. The two of them have been walking around for a couple weeks like Grim and Grimmer. It's been a real goddamned pleasure to be at work with them.

So I found out some of the story last Friday from my boss. The Princess filled in the gaps on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the boss pretty much asked me to be the manager. I agreed that I could administer level tests and meet prospective parents who surely couldn't speak English but might enjoy my pleasant Charlie Brown's Teacher "Mwuuuu mwuuh mwuh" voice as I speak to them. I can't answer the phones and I can't speak to the "omoni's" (mommies) about their kid's progress. I can't do a whole lot of stuff that a manager needs to do - and frankly I don't want the job. I'd prefer if they didn't add one little iota of more work right now. I'm still fighting the shingles and I'm exhausted. I need calm. I need peace.

On Thursday night, the boss asked me to lend him a thousand dollars. "This isn't going well." I thought. I avoided answering him, but knew I wasn't going to do it. The boss was freaking out, and I tried to get him to calm the hell down. "Don't worry. We'll find a manager. We have time. Everything is going to be all right."

When The Princess told me on Tuesday the boss was considering selling the school, I immediately told her I'd quit if he did. One of the main reasons I even agreed to re-sign for one more year was out of loyalty to him. I didn't think he could really bear the cost of getting me back home and hiring a new foreign teacher, and frankly - I didn't want to add to his stress. (Plus I'm lazy and going through the rigamaroll of securing a new job seemed like too much of a hassle, having gone through it the previous summer.)

On Friday I woke up even stuffier than the day before - I'm fighting a cold - and I had only a squeak of a raspy voice. "No worries," I thought. "Today is our lame-o Halloween thing - so my classes will be shortened by a good twenty minutes." With only one day before the weekend, I figured I'd wing it.

Three minutes before my second class of the day, The Princess rolled her chair over to my desk and whispered, "He sold the school." I used all my "W" questions in two seconds flat. "What? When? To who? When will he finish? Why? What? Huh?" I sat there shaking my head as she told me the new boss would start "probably next month."
"What? November?!? That's next week!"

The bell rang signalling the start of the class.

I grabbed up my stuff and headed toward the classroom, but stopped short. I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. I slipped into the open door of an empty classroom just before I burst into tears. My co-worker found me there a few minutes later and seeing the state I was in, asked if she should go mind the class. I thanked her and asked her to just give me a few minutes. I spashed some cold water on my face and poured some Visine in my eyes, but in the end I cried all goddamned day long. In my classes, I passed it off as my part of my bad cold and I think some of the students actually bought it.

And right now I've got fifteen minutes to get into the shower and get dressed for this sham of a "hweshick" (work party) that was planned weeks ago. The first sign of a tear, though - and I'm heading back home.

Banchan

Nevermind "two shoes," I've got a massive backlog of posts. I was having a look around my site and started feeling guilty that I only have four measly posts for October, and here we are on the last day of the month. Remember the good old days when I'd churn out double digits in a month? Sheesh. So I'm going to try to squeeze out a few entries today, and figured I'd start off with some nice lighthearted ones. Things are about to get especially sucky up in here at I Got Two Shoes, but for now let's all take a deep breath and relax.

Many moons ago, sometime in the spring (see how bunged up I am?) I walked in on my boss having some dinner in an empty classroom. He had a big container of kimchi, an open package of "gim" (roasted and salted delicious sheets of seaweed) and a square Tupperware dish of rice. "Oh! Dinner time!" I said. "How is it?"
"Bad," he replied. "I don't have soup."

For pretty much every meal Koreans consume, the holy triumvirate of rice, kimchi, and soup must be present for the meal to be considered, well, a meal. Because I am a Fixer of Problems, I started to think about how this lack of soup issue could be resolved.

My boss didn't normally eat dinner at work, unless you count a cup of instant ramen to be dinner. I knew that three nights a week my boss would leave after my last class which ended at ten o'clock and head down toward the university where he would wait to pick up his daughter, a second year high school student, who finished her after-school-extra-school classes at midnight. They'd get home around twelve thirty and she'd probably study some more because being a high school student in Korea sucks ass, and eventually they'd go to bed knowing that their six-thirty alarms would be ringing all too soon. Anyways, this tough schedule combined with the stress my boss was experiencing at work and home (his wife had left him) meant that he wasn't eating regularly, and had lost about forty pounds in just a few months. I was feeling bad for him.

A couple days later while shopping, I bought him a present - a thermos! I figured he could make soup at home and bring it to work so he could enjoy a somewhat satisfying meal. I brought the thermos home and made some soup to fill it with and brought it to school all proud at having Fixed the Problem. He was pleased, and told me my soup was delicious. So I got to thinking again, about how I really enjoy cooking - but because I'm cooking for one (me) most of the time I can't be bothered and opt instead for a dinner of toast, or popcorn, or bits of dust and lint I find under my bed. So I took the thermos back from him and told him I'd make more soup for the next day. The next day turned into another day and so on, and soon I had become the permanent Maker of the Soup. But still, my boss's dinner looked unsatisfying because it lacked banchan.

Banchan is the term for all the side dishes that accompany a Korean meal. I love banchan, and my favourite restaurants are the ones that serve up a nice variety. If you're someone who's in Korea, or have ever eaten at a Korean restaurant, don't you just love it when your sitting on the floor in front of a large table and the whole thing is covered with dishes? I'm reminded of a post I did a loooong time ago about a Korean breakfast I'd enjoyed.

The making of the soup was going well, and I would fill up the thermos with whatever I'd prepared that morning or the night before, and then I'd have a nice bowl of it myself for breakfast. I decided that I wanted banchan with my breakfast as well, so I went out and bought a nice plastic compartmentalized container meant for banchan, and then I started making that as well. It was good!

I took a couple of pictures a long time ago, thinking that I'd post about banchan eventually.



Here, we have stir-fried garlic stems (maneuljjong-bokkeum) pickled cucumber (oijangajji muchim) and some fish cake/mushroom stir fry thing.

And here's another example:



That's seasoned green bean sprouts (sukju namul muchim) fried slices of tofu, and acorn jelly (dotori mook) pictured.

Some days I did really well with the banchan, and other times I'd really miss the mark, but my boss was pretty gracious and would eat most everything anyhow. He was pretty honest, though - in telling me when something I'd made kind of sucked. I didn't mind the constructive criticism, though, and was really enjoying browsing the Internet to put together a mini-menu and learning more about Korean food and how to cook various recipes. Almost every soup I made was delicious and I'm now a bona-fide ddenjjang jjigae expert. Sadly, my mi-ok gook (seaweed soup) which is one of the easiest soups to put together, never tastes right. Perhaps me not liking it has something to do with not being able to cook it properly. One other thing that bugged me was my boss's reluctance to enjoy non-Korean soups with his meal. I once made a roasted red pepper cream soup that was outstanding, but my boss wouldn't admit it. Likewise, my creamed zucchini soup, and roasted pumpkin and carrot soups were snubbed, but my manager (The Princess) would always happily eat 3/4 of the thermos. Despite what my boss, an old-school Korean dude would tell you, cream soups - especially those made from fresh vegetables with a little white wine, some herbs, and homemade chicken or vegetable broth then blended into a lovely rich thick bowl of goodness, pair wonderfully with rice and kimchi.

Anyhow, why not have a look around the web and try out recipes for yourself. You could start with two sites I visited frequently: Maangchi or My Korean Kitchen. Or pop on over to Zen Kimchi, a site that always makes me hungry - and he's got some great Korean food links as well. There's another site that I can't find right now. It's bookmarked on the PC at school, and I'll update on Monday. I made just about every recipe there and it's a good 'un. Happy cooking!

Will Old Habits Die Hard?

For all your up-to-this-minute information, don't forget to check back right now at this blog. Oh! You're here! Excellent. Now I shall give you a mini up-to-this-minute update.*

The number of students infected with H1N1 (aka Shin-John(g?)In-ploo-enjah) at my school is now FIVE. Up two from yesterday. Keeping in mind I work at a small private English academy (hagwon) that's a pretty high number.

There might be something going on to commemorate Halloween Day this Friday at my school. It's too early to discuss what that will or won't be and what might or might not be happening. Face painting was mentioned, and then promptly cancelled when they realised that would require me to have the student's faces right in front of mine. So something else might happen instead, or nothing will happen. It's all a secret mystery.

I'm not overly paranoid about H1N1; I figure I'm probably going to get it, but I really have to try to NOT to. With shingles, I know my immune system is currently fooked - even catching a cold could be very bad for me.

The Princess (my manager) wasn't honest about how ill she really was feeling Monday when she came to school. She said she wasn't worried that it might be the flu because she didn't have a cough. I told her, "you don't need to have a cough to have the flu. You don't even need to have a fever!" I pulled up a site showing the symptoms related to H1N1 and she checked off nearly all of them in relation to how she was feeling. I told her I thought we really need to encourage our students to stay at home if they're not feeling well and really, she should be setting an example.

I think it's going to prove SUCH a challenge here to try to avoid catching and spreading the flu. Koreans are going to have to change their attitude about work and school. Most people believe that showing up is very important. It doesn't matter if you're not being productive because you're ill. You're THERE, and that's what counts. However, it seems to be common sense to stay home and rest when you're ill and avoid people when you're contagious. But these ideas go against Korean thinking. I wonder if H1N1 is going to be the catalyst that promotes conversion to a healthier and more logical attitude. Also covering one's face when coughing or sneezing, and washing one's hands frequently are good habits that don't come naturally here. I wonder if these practices are going to take hold quickly. I certainly hope so. **Hand to heart, as I typed that last sentence, the 1st grader getting his online homework done behind me in the staffroom just sneezed all over the keyboard. Fabulous!

Right now, the news is reporting that H1N1 is spreading very rapidly in Korea. My boss told me the government had advised schools to close if H1N1 was present, but is now re-thinking and debating that advisory. Just like our planning for Halloween festivities - and as is the tendency for things in general in Korea, confusion and last minute decision-making seem to be the way it's going.

*I started this post at work on Tuesday evening, but had to put it aside when the bell rang for my next class. So really, this was an up-to-that minute update. For up-to-this minute news, you'll have to look somewhere else.

Update: Oh! It seems there has been a decision made! It's a relief to know what's going on!

Bummer

I still gotz da shingles. Same same. I went to the hospital on Saturday and the waiting room was JAM PACKED with sick people. I remarked to the doctor that they were super busy, and he said it was H1N1. I haven't gotten a proper handle on what they call it here, even though I'm hearing it numerous times a day. Sounds something like "Shinjeong Inploo-enja."

And, guess what? THREE of my students have it! They're all middle school girls, and the three of them hang out together a LOT. Actually, two of them are identical twin sisters. I was the last one to teach them last Thursday night, and when I heard on Friday that one of them had tested positive I was regretting sitting beside her and patting her back as she took the test I was giving them. She looked pretty miserable, but told me it was just a bad cold. D'oh! So far, though, I'm pine tenk you, and you?

My manager's sick, but she says it's just a bad cold. I played it safe and did not pat her back encouragingly yesterday at all. Turmoil abounds at my school. From what I've heard so far, the Princess (manager) told my boss a couple weeks ago that she wanted to take over the school. He told her it wasn't for sale. So she came back a few days later and told him she's going to quit. My boss is really upset. My other co-worker is supposed to finish at the end of November, though if it were up to the Princess she'd be fired two weeks ago. The Princess does not like the co-worker, and the feeling is mutual. Now there's also a rift between the Princess and the boss - so the Staff Room is all round completely miserable. Except for me. I remain a brilliant ray of sunhine.

Okay, I lie.

But my doctor did up my prescription for painkillers. So whereas I started out taking 20mg a day under Dr. Rainman's care, I'm now up to 120mg a day. It's really getting the job done and for the most part I feel fiiiiine all day long. Finally. I can tell the pain is still in there somewhere, but it's properly muffled now.

I am bothered by the presence of H1N1 at the school and the absence of any sort of plan of action. I don't know if I should be talking about it with the other students or not. The upper grades seem to already know because the younger sister of one of the middle school girls who has it has told everyone. I wonder what's going to happen when the kids go home and tell their parents. Are the parents going to be upset? Are we supposed to be thinking about closing temporarily? I have no idea.

I'm upset that we aren't having any sort of Halloween celebration this year. I was told yesterday that it's cancelled, but no one is telling me why. The Princess told me to "ask the Wongjangnim" and I said "really? Can't you tell me?" She said "no." My boss's English ability isn't good enough to communicate complicated things in a short period of time. I usually only interact with him in brief five minute intervals because we're both busy and our break schedules don't mesh. So all I know now is we're not doing anything fun, and I expect our students are going to be more disappointed than I am. They really look forward to the Halloween party. I do, too. And the thing is, I have taken over all the planning and preparation for it over the years - so it's not like it's a huge amount of work for any of the Korean teachers. Total bummer. I'm still bummed out that my favourite music festival was cancelled. I wouldn't have come into close contact with anyone there - for sure not closer than I do with the kids every day at work. Yet, the festival was cancelled on the possibility that some attendee might have H1N1, however at my school there's the actuality that students have it,..and I'm still going to work. Like a jerk.

It feels like just everything is coming apart here, being undone one stitch at a time. When I'm not feeling apathetic, I'm feeling pathetic. Overall I'm feeling burnt out.

Update Schmupdate

Sometimes I hate coming up with a title.

I shouldn't have promised that I wasn't going to write about shingles in my next entry. It made me not want to write at all. I've been taken over by shingles. I'm all about the shingles. Shingles, shingles, shingles. The funny thing is I think the name sounds sort of fun, don't you? Shingles, jingles, pringles! Wheeee! The reality is it sucks dong-dingles.

I suppose I'm now into the realm of postherpetic neuralgia, though no doctor has actually said I have it. And, I haven't asked any doctor because I don't want to hear it. But my rash is almost all cleared up and yet the pain,...ohhhhhh the pain, it goes on.

But it doesn't constantly go on. The drugs, they are strong and good and fine and good. Yes. They're double good. They really do fool me in to thinking that I'm all better and ready to rock n'roll. I feel sort of guilty taking them because I actually feel a lot better - but I've learned, and keep re-learning that I'm very much NOT BETTER.

Last Saturday I visited the fancy downtown hospital like I do every few days. Unfortunately, my kind young doctor was away on a conference so I was ushered into see an old stodgy looking guy who ordered me to sit and then seemed to be very put-off that I couldn't speak Korean very well. He spent a few minutes scolding me about it and I inwardly groaned, knowing that we were not off to a good start. As he spoke to me in halting English he wrote out everything he was saying - in that scrawly cursive docwriting that they must teach in medical school. I couldn't read what he was writing even if I'd wanted to. His idea was that the medicine wasn't getting the job done and so we would increase the remedy. I was fine with that, even though the oxycodone almost smothers the pain and I was quite satisfied with how it was working. He was going to change the meds, and described the patch I was going to apply and leave on for three days in lieu of popping pills a few times a day. I was interested because I'd been secretly wishing that they would just give me an IV drip that I could drag around. A three day bandaid that would seep narcotics into my bloodstream through my skin sounded intriguing. So I walked out of there with my usual 12 pills a day and two Duragesic® patches. back at home, google told me that the patches would deliver fentanyl into me. Fentanyl: approximately 100 times more potent than morphine. Hello!

So long story longer, I spent another day finishing up my oxycodone and then opened up one of the Durogesic® patches and stuck it on my upper arm. It was just like a bit of tape, clear except for the name written in orange, about 10cm long and 3cm wide. Around 11 o'clock I went to bed and slept for about 12 hours. I noticed when I got up around 8 for a mid-slumber pee that I was wobbly and had to halt a couple of times on the way to the loo to stop myself from careening into the wall as if my apartment was on a great big slant. Around 11, it wasn't an alarm clock that woke me,...it was more like a fire alarm. The usual fire that was my shingles was back, but in addition all of me was on fire! And freezing! And just crawling! It felt like my skin was trying to abandon ship. I was having side effects, but even worse - the patch wasn't working! I had full on stabby shingle fire, which was something I'd managed to avoid on the oxycodone. I sent a message to my awesome nurse and told her what was happening and she told me to come back in to the hospital and they'd increase the fentanyl or change meds again.

So I went down and saw my favourite doctor who questioned why I'd even been put on the patch anyhow - as it was very useful for people taking scads of pills who couldn't handle all the swallowing, but I can handle the 3 tiny oxy (plus 12 other pills) I was taking a day. He put me back on oxycodone and sent me off to the nurse who puts a needle in my ass and spanks me bye-bye. I went into work to try to beg to NOT be there, as I was feeling creepy and crawly and frankly flu-like. My co-workers eventually conferred and told me I could go home if I needed to, but about 20 minutes before that whatever they'd given me at the hospital had kicked in and I was feeling a lot better. By the time I started my last class at 9, I was feeling pretty fine. Just after I thanked my co-workers for their willingness to cover my classes, I was told that we'd all have the following day off!

The government is proposing to pass laws to regulate private study academies in Korea. Surely there is more information on other sites and when I come across it I'll update with some links. To be honest, I don't care one way or the other - but I thank the hagwon associations that advised everyone to close up shop for a one-day strike and head up to Seoul to protest. None of us went to Seoul, and I sure wasn't going to protest about my unexpected one-day holiday! I decided to lie down around 4:30 Tuesday afternoon for a little nap - and I woke up around 9:30. IN THE MORNING!! That's 17 hours. It seems I'm training for the Sleep Olympics.

So that's what I'm like these days. Slow and dopey. Prone to naps. I've been hoarding sleep like it might not be available anymore at some point in the near future. I can't really not think about shingles, because it has pretty well consumed me. And for the time being I'm okay with that. It's still just one day at a time over here at Shingles Central. I'm just meandering through whatever it is I have to do - shower, eat, work - until I can lay my head down for another nap.

Thanks again to those of you who have wished me well and hoped for my speedy recovery. Your comments and e-mails have meant a great deal to me, really. Being sick anywhere sucks fo sure, but I think it especially sucks in a foreign country. I think I might elaborate on that when it's not time for another nap. I need to especially thank Kevin for his really wonderful and most appreciated e-mail. He's a generous guy, that Kevin is - for even considering me and taking the time to write such a concerned and encouraging note while facing far more serious health issues with his mom. Thank you, my friend.

Let me finish this off by saying that I wish zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Shingles Central

Hey there! For those of you in Korea, let me welcome you a belated "Happy Chuseok!" For me, Chuseok meant having a four day vacation and there isn't anything wrong with that!

So, I'm still in the "Shingles Saga" here at I Got Two Shoes. After I wrote my last post I found myself getting angrier and angrier. What sort of of doctor was this Rainman asshole anyway? I just couldn't believe I was getting the brush-off, and I couldn't understand why. To boot,I noticed I had another rash on my left foot. I was hoping it wasn't a new outbreak of shingles, but it looked very similar. I went into work all fired up and, frankly, on the verge of tears because I was so exhausted and frustrated. My manager hadn't called the doctor yet, and so once again I told her how upset I was and showed her the new rash on my foot.

A little while later I walked back into the Teacher's Room and noticed that Cindy looked upset. She said, "That doctor is SO RUDE!" I practically shouted, "I KNOW! RIGHT?" He'd told her that he has been a doctor for thirty five years and has never seen a case of shingles breaking out in multiple locations. He basically called me an idiot, and told her (with a sigh) to tell me to come back in and see him.

And then he hung up on her!

Cindy said what I'd already been thinking, that I should go find a new doctor at one of the big fancy downtown hospitals instead of this pathetic countryside hospital with their bloodletting leech cure-alls. I asked if she could call and get some sort of records of the treatments I'd had thus far so I didn't have to try to explain everything to the new doctor. So she called Dr. Rainman back and requested a file and he barked, "FINE!" and then hung up on her again!

I picked up my records a couple hours later and made plans to seek help elsewhere the next morning. Cindy recommended a hospital downtown that her family had been to, telling me they had all sort of shiny new medical machines. I didn't really care about that. I just wanted a decent doctor who was willing to treat me until I was better. Cindy kindly wrote out a page long letter, including some questions I had wanted to ask Dr. Rainman, and also explaining about the new rash on my foot. She warned me that the last time they'd visited there they'd waited for more than two hours, so I should make sure I went early.

And so I did. I checked in at the front desk early the next day an was immediately led by the hand to some benches outside an office door and they made me wait a whole FIVE minutes to be seen! The doctor was very kind and read through the notes I'd given him. He looked at my foot and confirmed it was a second outbreak and told me he was putting me back on a course of antiviral medication. This second rash isn't very good news. It is uncommon to have shingles in multiple locations, and especially so considering I'd already taken a seven day course of acyclovir. The second episode means that my immune system is definitely weakened for some reason or other.

Dr. GoodGuy also tripled the amount of pain medication that Dr. Rainman had initially and reluctantly prescribed. So I'm taking lots of oxycodone and it feels like we may have finally gotten it right. I still feel the pain, but now it's time to take another pill when it starts to feel really horrible. Another bonus is I'm able to sleep. In fact, I lost Sunday because I slept through it. All of it. I woke up from a Sunday afternoon nap to a dusky grey sky and figured the sun had just set, only to realize it was actually about to rise, shining on a new Monday morning. I'm still flat-out exhausted. My whole four day weekend was spent nodding off in various furniture around my apartment. Good times.

I've been using a wooden spoon to scratch my back. I'd like to attach spikes to it. I think that'd feel reaaaallll goooood. It's weird. Parts of my body where the rash was are numb. My left boob is numb. Still, it begs to be scratched. Sometimes it feels like I've got worms crawling around inside me. I just paused for three minutes to spoon myself. Just typing this is making me itchy.

The only really scary thing about visiting the city hospital was the bill when I went to pay it. Whereas I was shelling out about 45,000 won a visit at the country hospital, the new place rang up 269,000 on the cash register. I just about screamed. When they figured out I didn't have insurance they called over to Dr. GoodGuy and played around with the medications he'd prescribed and got my bill reduced down to a slightly more reasonable 115,000. Still. Blech!

The nurse was awesome and asked me to come back on Tuesday afternoon to see her and Dr. GoodGuy again. She even asked me for my phone and punched in her own cell number, telling me to call her if I had any questions. I texted her today and asked her if it was alright I visit a day early because I'm working tomorrow afternoon. (I could have gone in Tuesday morning, but then I'd be seeing a new doc, as Dr. GoodGuy was on the afternoon shift.) She texted back that it was fine, so I went in and was hooked up through to Saturday for medications. I'm taking twenty pills a day. Nurse Lee texted me this evening, apologizing for not spending a lot of time with me during today's visit, explaining that they were so busy after the Chuseok vacation. What a doll! We ended each visit with an ass injection and a good slap on my rear. I don't know what it was they put in that syringe (I was told it was for pain) but for a few hours I felt finey-fine-fine. I wouldn't mind at all if they set me up on an intravenous drip of whatever that was.

Anyhow. So that's how things are going over here at Shingles Central. I hope you're having a better time than me. My next post will be non-shingley related, I promise.

Should I Just Re-title My Blog "Craptastic?"

Joy, in her comment on my last post was sweet enough to ask me how my pox was doing. I figured ya'll haven't read me complain about anything in almost a day now, so it's high time I get posting!

I guess things are progressing as they should with my shingles. The rash turned into little blisters that popped at some point, and now the rash is crusting over and in some parts fading away. So that's good. The thing is, I'm not FEELING very good.

This past weekend was not too bad. I took things easy and tried to get lots of rest. I went out Saturday afternoon for a very nice lunch with a couple of friends and then had a short leisurely shop at Lotte department store. I was feeling alright and surely the reason for this was because I was liberal with the pain medication. I wasn't totally drugged out by any means, but I was taking a pill when I started to feel moderately uncomfortable instead of trying to stick to two pills a day at 12 hour intervals. I sort of fooled myself into thinking I was getting much better because I hadn't had to really feel the sharp stabby fire knife pain (I know I've said that before but really, it's the most apt way I can convey the feeling. I'll try to come up with another description tomorrow.) in the front of me, or the deep constant ache that's going on in the back of me.

Then I woke up late on Monday morning and neglected to take a pill OR bring any of them with me to work. By five o'clock I realized that I'd been tricked and I was still in a very significant amount of pain. I took a couple of Tylenol that did pretty much nothing for me and otherwise just grimaced and moaned my way through the rest of the day until I could get back home and take my medicine.

So I went to the hospital again today and the doctor greeted me not with "How are you feeling?" but, "Why are you here?"

What?

I've been getting the sense that the doctor doesn't even want to give me a prescription for anything. I mentioned it already, but I left the hospital on my first visit to him in tears, with him "permitting" me to take some Tylenol and advising me to "not focus on the pain and endure." Last Friday when I visited him he wanted to reduce the oxycodone down to 10mg twice a day, which is what he had prescribed on my second visit the day after he doled out his sage advice on endurance. I was angry at that second visit, and told him I'd already spent a week in pain that was growing significantly and had tried to quell that with muscle relaxants and ibuprofen my regular doctor had prescribed. Now that I knew I wasn't having a heart attack and was dealing with shingles instead, let's unlock the narcotics cabinet already. After the third visit he finally doubled the dosage and that's been almost masking the pain. "So, no." I said last Friday. "Let's not decrease anything please."

Today, "Why are you here?" he repeated.

What the fuck?

"Don't you remember me? I gots the shingles?"

He examined me and noted the rash was getting a lot better. I told him my left boob is numb. "Yeah." He said.
"Here. All here is numb."
"Yeah."
"I can't feel this," poking the side of my breast. "It's numb."
"Yeah."
"Do you know 'numb'?"
"Yeah."
(Fucking Rainman!)
"Doctor, arrayo 'numb'? N-U-M-B?"
"Mwoh?" (What?)
So I looked it up on my phone's dictionary. (Oh, yah! My cellphone has been saved! The jury is still out on the fate of my camera and MP3.) "Look here: numb. Is that normal?"
"I think you recovery slow. It's ok. Five days medicine."

I counted out the days looking at the calendar on the wall. "What about Chuseok? (The three day "holiday" starting on Friday.) "Are you open Monday?"
"Yes. Open." he replied, "But after this medicine you must endure."

Oh, great! We're back to that? I said "Don't be like that, doctor. If I'm in pain on Monday I'm coming back here."
"Yeah."

I went back to work feeling frustrated, like I've been given a cut-off point for treatment. I'm worried about developing postherpetic neuralgia, a complication from shingles that could leave me in pain for months or even (I'll surely go insane) years. The doctor struggled greatly on my first and second visits to explain neuralgia to me, but now seems to be dismissing it. Dismissing ME, to be more precise.

I just don't understand where he's coming from. Why would pain that's deemed treatable now have to be endured without medication in a few days? I'm trying my best to convey how I'm feeling (like shit) and he's decided that he knows better. I'm really hoping that by Monday I'm feeling completely better, but I fear that's not going to be the case. Nevermind that I'm unable to count properly and realized back at work that I only have enough pills to last until Saturday.

So I spoke to my manager and she served me up a laughable dish of bull, saying that "Western people have a different attitude toward illness. We think we should endure. Western people go to the doctor often. We don't."
LIES!!

People here visit the "hospital" (clinic at best, but more likely a simple doctor's office) for everything! Then they go to the pharmacist to collect a hundred pills to be eaten four times a day with kimchi. In Canada I'd suffer through a cold or flu and just pop into the drugstore and get some medicine off the shelf. Here, the pharmacies are tiny and lack shelves by and large. You've got to describe your symptoms to the pharmacist and then HE or SHE will choose for you. With doctor's visits and prescriptions being so cheap here it's just easier to go see the doctor and get an injection on your ass before visiting the pharmacy with a prescription. By the way, I don't have health insurance. Having shingles has already cost me about four hundred dollars, so yah. I'd like to get better pronto.

I was so upset back at work, and feeling stressed about having to stress out for the next few days thinking Dr. Rainman was going to refuse to treat me. What I want to hear from him is, "Don't worry. I know shingles is oftentimes extremely painful. You should avoid stress. Get rest. Please don't worry, we will make sure you get through this as comfortably as possible until you're better." I don't understand the logic in withholding relief. I don't see how that's being very "doctorly." I'm sure I could endure the pain without dying from it, but it severely impedes me from doing my job well. It wrecks my sleep. It makes living unpleasant. It prevents me from enjoying ANYTHING. I'm not interested in martyrdom, give me the drugs already.

My manager agreed to call the doctor tomorrow but I know she won't be as direct as I'd like her to be. Afterall, the doctor is a man and he's older than her and apparently knows best. (Yeah.) I've written down some questions for her to ask, about the surface numbness and if it's normal to feel like I'm "flaring up" when I get stressed out and why I'm still not sleeping well at all, and about neuralgia. We'll see what happens, but if Dr. Rainman's going to be unhelpful I'm going to have to go into the city to a "BIG" hospital and seek out an empathetic and effective doctor before the weekend.

I Just Used Craptastic as a Title, Didn't I?

So let's call this one "Suckerrific."

I noticed on Brian in Jeollanam-do's site that he was listing more festivals here in Korea Schmorea that have been cancelled due to H1N1. I was reminded that I've been meaning to go check out the Ulsan World Music Festival's website to check out their expanding lineup and make sure i hadn't been cancelled. I was so pleased when I pulled the site up. No mention of cancellation and Bajofondo, who ROCKED last year was headlining again.

Then I noticed my computer was blocking a pop-up, and sure enough - there was the cancellation notice. It's in English, too. Korea has been advised by The Ministry of No Fun Public Administration and Security to cancel events that attract more than 1,000 people at a time and run more than 2 days. So we can now add the "Cheoyong Culture Festival- 2009 World Music Festival" scheduled from Oct. 9th - 11th to the long list of cancelled events. That SUCKS. Attending that festival was one of the best things I did in Korea in 2008, and I've been looking forward to going again for such a long time.

The Seoul subway system runs every day and surely attracts thousands of visitors hourly. When are they going to cancel that? Two different kids sneezed today, not ON me (for a change) but right beside me and they didn't make any attempt to cover up their snot blast. I could just imagine their swine flu particles wafting through the air and straight up my nose. When are they going to cancel my job?

I know you've all had "one of those days." You know,...the type of day that just flat out sucks ass? Well learning that my favourite festival has been cancelled was just the sucky cherry topping the sucky suck-ass sundae that was my Monday.

Raaaargh!