I Have the (Swine) Flu

As any good germaphobe would tell you, there's really nothing you can do to avoid germs completely, save for living in a bubble, and I'm not talking about the metaphorical bubble that most of Korea is trapped in. That's actually the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. Anyway, despite my every attempt at not getting sick, unfortunately I did. It started with a little light-headedness and an achey feeling in my chest on Thursday night, and turned into a massive headache, with full-blown body aches and chills on Friday morning. It hit so quick I couldn't believe it. I woke knowing that there was no way I was making it to school that day, so I texted my co-teacher and attempted to rest some more, hoping that would do the trick. After about another two hours or so, I realized I was going to have to get some antibiotics, because this was no regular cold. I dragged myself out of bed with all the energy I could muster and made my way to the shower/bathroom, which was freezing cold and not helping with my chills. As I've detailed here before, I can't take a shower for 10 minutes straight with warm water. I have to turn the faucet on and off between cleanses and rinses, which made things even more difficult on that morning. Eventually I finished, dressed and then set out on what I was sure was going to be quite the experience: a trip to my local hospital.

As far as I can tell, hospitals here are one-stop-shops for all your medical needs. For example, if you have regular visits with your doctor for some condition, you don't go to an office to meet him, you just go to the hospital. I don't know whether they have doctor's offices or not to be honest. I'm just going off of what I've seen/heard since I've been here. Luckily I have Korean medical insurance and had previously asked a friend how to go about using it should I ever need to. She told me that I could go to any hospital and show them my information and I'd be fine. So this is exactly what I did. I very slowly and gingerly walked down to the subway, took it one stop over and went to the information desk at the hospital.

The place was pretty full, but it didn't take long for me to get everything taken care of. When I initially told the lady at the desk that I was sick, she asked if I had a fever and I said I didn't know, but I thought so. About 10 minutes or so later I was called to have my temperature taken, and when I did, the nurse kind of laughed and said, "You have a fever." It wasn't a mean laugh or anything, more like a "Yeah, you're hotter than my favorite spicy kimchi right now" kind of laugh. I was immediately given one of those surgical-looking masks to wear and waited for the next time my name was called. One nurse ended up taking care of me for most of the time I was there, and her English was okay, but it was nice to know that she was kind of my go to person should I have needed anything. So anyway, about another 10 minutes later I met with a doctor who also spoke very little English, but enough to understand what was ailing me. From there I was taken over to another station where they gave me a flu test. Boy was I not ready for that test. The lady sat me down and basically motioned like, "I'm going to take this q-tip and put it up your nostril to get a sample. Okay?" Okay! No problem! WRONG! This q-tip thing was about six inches long, and I'll be damned if she didn't shove all six inches of it up there. I swear I felt it in my throat! As she's doing this of course I'm scrunching my face and moving upwards as she goes further and further upwards, and she tells me to stop scrunching my face. Uh, excuse me, you're sticking a six-inch q-tip up my nose obviously trying to get a brain sample, what do you want from me?! I was honestly left a little disoriented after she pulled it out, probably more because my eyes were now completely watered and I was still feeling a little light-headed. From there it was a 30 minute wait to see the doctor and hear the results, which as you should have been able to guess by now were positive. He said, "I think you have the swine flu." Immediately I started hoping he would just prescribe me some antibiotics and let me go home. I didn't want to spend any more time in the hospital. Luckily that's exactly what he did. He gave me my prescription, I went down to the pharmacy in the basement of the hospital, got my drugs and went home.

Now, because this was diagnosed as the swine flu, it meant I received an automatic one week off of work. Those are the swine flu rules here. Stay home and rest for one week. Here's the thing though, I was and still am pretty sure I didn't/don't have the swine flu. I'm positive it's just the regular flu. My symptoms have been no worse than when I've previously had the flu. I wasn't going to try and clarify that with the doctor at the time though. Besides, I kind of got the feeling that anyone who gets the flu here these days, are just being diagnosed as having swine flu to be safe. So what I'm trying to say is that there is some good news. I'm currently enjoying a week off of work and am already almost 100% better. Who am I to argue with the swine flu rules? Now it's not like I plan on gallivanting all around Busan for the next couple days, because for one there's not THAT much to do here, but it's still nice to just be able to sleep in, stay home and relax.

A couple weeks ago I walked outside in the morning to meet my co-teacher for school and was surprised to find snow on the tops of all the cars and other select places around me. It had snowed the night before, but hasn't again since. There's really not much of a story here, but for me, aside from vacations and trips to the mountains, it was the first time I woke up to snow since I lived in Tennessee when I was in 7th grade. It was kind of neat.

I had my first Korean basketball game experience a couple weeks ago as well and it was fun. Much like the baseball game we went to, they had this guy at the bottom of a section of seats, which I guess you could call the cheering section, encouraging everybody to cheer. He holds up signs, screams, sings, says funny things in Korean that I don't understand, etc. Well this time, we were seated in the "cheering section" and he was right in front of us the whole game. It's funny how someone can get you excited to cheer and piss you off by blocking your view at the same time. I got some video of him below. There were two other highlights of this game worth mentioning. The first is the mascot. The name of the team is Sonic Boom, so the mascot is this astronaut-looking thing. I think the video I shot of him below will more accurately describe his enthusiasm during the game than I can with words here. Also, while watching the game, I noticed that I recognized the center playing for the team from Seoul. Just as I was telling Brent that he looked familiar, he turned so I could see the back of his jersey, which said "와커." Walker! That's Samaki Walker! Holy crap! For those of you non-Laker fans and casual Laker fans who don't remember Samaki Walker, he was a member of the 2002 championship team, the last of the three-peat earlier this decade. Back home he was a power forward, but here in Korea he's playing as a center. He's just one of those players that kind of disappeared and you never thought about again. Like J.R. Reid or Travis Knight. Where are those guys!? Anyway, it was real funny and surprising to see him there. He didn't really dominate or anything either, like you would expect a former NBA player playing in Korea to. The center from Busan actually outplayed him I thought. Whatever. Good for Samaki Walker. He's still playing "competitive" basketball.

That's it for now. If you haven't received an e-mail from me yet, I'm looking to get a hold of all your addresses to send out Christmas cards. If you think I already have it, good, look forward to your card in the mail. If not, please e-mail me at robert.j.koontz@gmail.com and let me know so I can send you a card.

Take care everyone!

Korean Basketball

Is that Samaki Walker?

Holy crap! It IS Samaki Walker!!!