Christmas Greetings, one and all! Isn't this a great time of year? All of the festive lights, the singing choirs, the spending upon spending upon spending? Hannah and I couldn't help ourselves and got two early Christmas presents for us: the first was a 4GB XBox 360 with two controllers, Halo 3, and The Orange Box (Portal, Half Life 2, and Team Fortress 2); the second was a rather festive winter cold.
Now, of the two of us, Hannah is usually the one who gets sick the most; however, this time I was the cause. I am not sure where I got it from (students, teachers, being in Korea, the communal water cup at the gym...) but I got a rather intense sore throat that kept me from sleeping and almost kept me from drinking water! A few days later, when the symptoms began to subside, Hannah contracted an infection herself! Nothing says "I love you" like sharing a disease!
Currently, Hannah is on the mend after being sick for about 4 days, but I have been sick for about 9 days at the time of writing and, whereas my sore throat has pretty much gone away, I was showing some rather worrisome symptoms that got me in a bit of a panic. Such symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, congestion, coughing up thick, brown phlegm, loss of sleep, and a series of fevers and chills the previous night. It reminded me an awful lot of my rather nasty bout with pneumonia in March and I wanted to make sure I didn't have a repeat of that. Upon Hannah's insistence, I begrudgingly took a day off work and went to the clinic for a prescription.
My guardian coteacher, Eun Jin, took me down to a clinic nearby in Jangsan. I expected to sit there blankly for the next 3-4 hours, as is usual in Canada, but had barely sat down before my name was called! We walked (I shuffled) to the doctor's office and entered. I was not in the doctor's office more than 5 minutes as he checked my vitals and Eun Jin translated my symptoms to him. He gave me a prescription with some mild antibiotics and tylenol and sent me on my way. Now, though Korea does not have a nationalized healthcare system, it was remarkably inexpensive: 3800 won (about 3.25$CDN)! The pharmacy downstairs filled my prescription for two days for the same price. In all, the visit plus drugs cost me 7600 won (about 7$CDN). I was in and out in under 20 minutes.
Likewise, Hannah has been going to visit a doctor a few times because she has been experiencing a great amount of pain in her knees. The first day she arrived, she saw a doctor in under 7 minutes, got a diagnosis (tendonitis), and was hooked up to some sort of localized electroshock treatment immediately afterward. She visited three times so far and each visit cost her something like 7000 won. She still plans on seeking acupuncture therapy as the problem remains (though the treatment did help in the short term, she reported).
Hannah showed me an amazing site a little while ago called "KikinitinKorea" and, while I have no idea what the name means, it has a number of funny-but-true observations about living abroad. Their post on going to see a doctor really does sum up this post beautifully: http://kikinitinkorea.tumblr.com/post/23290832389/going-to-the-doctor
With luck we should both be better by the end of the weekend! We do not have a whole lot planned, but that's probably for the best. And, though I hate to admit it (much less publically on this blog), my next post will most likely be about going to the post office since... well... I haven't sent off my Christmas package yet to home. I mean, I got everything together last weekend... but I'm just scared! Let's see how much expedited international shipping is :S...
-Garrett
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