After the kidney infection a few weeks ago, I had a followup appointment at Gyeongsam National University Hospital (the hospital where we normally go for doctor appointments, that would not accept me in the ER because it was the weekend). For the first time ever, a doctor used the 'C' word with me--he said I needed a CT scan to see what caused the infection and to make sure I did not have cancer. 😳 What a warm welcome to middle age!
On my CT scan day a nurse walked me over to a tiny broom closet that was very publicly located and somehow we communicated that I could leave my undies on but I needed to take off my bra when donning the official outfit of GNU.
I then sat in the very public hallway in my jammies waiting for my turn to get scanned. If you have never seen a CT machine before, it is a big tube that has parts that rotate and whir while doing their job. Then the guy would say "Hold your breath" (that was in English so I understood). That repeated several times.
As I was in the machine, I was praying the whole time. I felt that God was telling me to not worry and that He would be with me no matter what the outcome was. While that was comforting, I was a little worried that He may be setting me up for some bad news.
I was so relieved when the results were negative for cancer! The doctor said that I had a kidney stone that was medium sized-- .66cm -- and would not pass by itself, which meant that I would need surgery.
I was like, "Surgery? So that's outpatient surgery, right?" It indeed was not. He made it sound like a vacation. Two nights and three days. One day to prep, one day for surgery, and one day to check out.
Check in was on a Sunday afternoon. They told me that the regular check in process wouldn't be running on the weekend, so check in through the ER. I joked with Abe that they weren't going to admit me since it was the weekend. Daggummit, when we arrived they did not want to admit me! The only correspondence I had said the surgery was on Monday so they were trying to send me home. Finally I got in and it took about two minutes to check in and I left the ER to go to my room on the 6th floor.
Thankfully the third party insurance that set things up for me reserved me a private room.
The non-private rooms had 6 people in them, plus a guest could pull up a hard cot to sleep on!
My room was small, but had a small fridge, microwave, and a bathroom. The joint rooms also had a joint bathroom across the hall.
My friend had warned me that I needed to bring my own toiletries, meaning hand soap, shampoo, a towel and a hand towel. She also told me I would need to bring a large drinking cup; a water cooler at the end of the hall is available to fill your cup that you bring from home.
I'm going to share a little too much here, but I had to collect my pee, then pour it into a container to measure, then flush it and record the amount all day.
I have some tiny veins that are always hard for nurses to find (they poked me 7 times before finding a good vein when one of my babies was born). They got the IV started in my hand, but there were many issues with it throughout the stay.
The morning of the surgery the nurse woke me at 5:30. At least I was able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise.
Anesthesia is a weird thing. The doctor asked what surgery I was in for. I told him a kidney stone, and that is the last thing I remember. Then bam! I was wide awake. As soon as I was awake the nurses took the electric blanket off of me and they were ready to wheel me upstairs. I kept telling them I had to pee and they said that was fine. I was like, am I supposed to pee here? In bed? And they were like yes, that's fine. Apparently in my sleep they stuck a catheter in me. It was very weird because I constantly felt like I had to pee and it felt like I was peeing the bed.
They were able to extract a couple big pieces of the stone. I later learned they were comprised of calcium and phosphate.
When I checked in a nurse asked if I wanted traditional Korean meals or Western. Duh. I wanted Western all day, every day. Sunday night she said there was no Western food that night (I think because it was the weekend?). I couldn't eat anything Monday until dinner; I was informed I had to eat Korean food after surgery because "it was good for you." After someone dropped off the meal I had to buzz them and ask if I could have a spoon for the soup. Someone did bring in a spoon and chopsticks, but chastised me for not bringing my own and said they would only bring it this one time. Of course. What kind of idiot would not bring their own eating utensils to the hospital? The next morning they brought me Korean food again. So much for that order for Western food I put in.
These jammies are a one size fits all. The pants were big enough to be a jumper on me. Nothing several rolls of the waist and in the cuffs couldn’t fix, though. 
When we have doctor appointments, which take place in the hospital, there are always people with their IV stands walking around, and people being wheeled around in their beds, just out there, for everyone to see/watch. It always seems weird and an invasion of their privacy. Well, on that particular day I became one of those people. 
I was the patient hobbling down the hall with my IV stand while carrying my pee in a bag for the whole world to see. What's more, I wore the same hospital jammies that I had on during surgery, which happened to have a large iodine stain on the back that looked like it could be something worse than iodine.
😳
Like Cinderella, I hobbled into the doctor's office at the strike of midnight, or in this case, the strike of 5:00. Zeke's doctor was all, "What happened to you?!" He was kind enough to give us two week's worth of medicine instead of just 2 days and he changed our appointment until I had time to recuperate, which was very kind of him. I then made my way down to the first floor information desk with my paper that the doctor gave me, with the intention of heading to the pharmacy. After some discussion that consisted of a lady talking in Korean and using hand motions telling me what I thought was I needed to go upstairs to see the doctor, and me (hoping she was ignoring my pee bag) responding in English, using hand motions, trying to explain that I had already been upstairs to see the doctor, she gave up talking and just walked me to the payment desk. I was on the verge of tears until I realized I was not going to have to travel back upstairs to the doctor. But then the tears almost came back when I thought I was going to have to go to up to the 6th floor to get my credit card for payment and back down again. I almost had tears of joy when I didn't have to. But then at the pharmacy (located very near the info and payment desks) there was an issue; the pharmacist said the word 'namja ai' (boy) and pointed to Zeke's name. Once again, I thought I was going to have to go all the way up to the 6th floor and down again to show my ID. But before I knew what was happening the lady brought me to a side room, where a little bag full of 14 days of pills was waiting for me. I wheeled my IV buggy upstairs, along with Zeke's pills and my pee bag. As I passed the nurses' station on the 6th floor I requested another round of pain meds.
Day three I was woken at 5:30am again. I got the catheter and the IV out. Throughout the morning they took a couple rounds of X-rays, took a pee sample, and did an ultrasound. Then I was ready to leave.
A stint had been placed inside me during surgery to help any extra pieces of the stone to get flushed out.
A couple weeks later I went back to have it removed. They sent me into a large room. A man told me to put on this skirt (I could leave on my top) and he pulled a curtain around a chair to give me privacy. It was bizarre (uncomfortable might be a better word?) because I could hear all kinds of people talking on the other side of the curtain (including men!) as I was exposing my girl parts. I sat in the chair with places to put my legs (not like the US kind where you place your feet in stirrups). You can see my legs resting on the extensions, poking out from the flowery skirt they gave me.
Then a nurse came in and pulled a little curtain so I couldn't see them and they could not see me.
A man joined her and they put a little scope inside of me and I watched. It didn't really look like anything. You can see the TV screen I was watching.
After the doc left the nurse showed me the stint. That green thing was inside me for two weeks! No wonder I was feeling some discomfort.
Then she left and I got dressed behind that curtain. I could hear several people talking in an adjacent room through an open door. There was a sign that said this:
I didn't know if it meant to exit to the left where I could hear those people talking or what. I had entered through this door, so...??? I pulled out my phone to google translate it and it said to slide the door this way. So I slid it open and left.
By the way, I am back to completely good health again.
[October 11-13]
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