ugh

At one point in time this was an occasionally (?) interesting blog about living and working in Korea. Now it's a running diary kept by a man whom God clearly wants dead.

Had another doctor's appointment. Took the old shuttle bus, but we don't have to talk about that again.

My appointment was for 9:50am. Now, I should explain the routine for my appointments. First thing I have to do is get blood drawn, so I go to the blood test area and give them some papers. Then I wait for a few minutes until my number is called, and they jab me with a needle and take my blood. Then, I have go to the hematology ward, where I sit with a bunch of old and dying Koreans and wait for my name to be called. Usually it's about a half hour wait.

Not today. Today I had to sit there for two effin hours. Twice during this wait I went to the counter with a "what the hell is going on" look on my face. The first time the girl just said a bunch of Korean to me and I turned around and sat back down. The next time I ventured a few Korean words of my own, asking when I was up and how much longer. She told me jogeum, or, "in a little bit".

Eventually, noon to be exact, my name gets called. (Interesting side note: when I was admitted to the hospital the first time they read my name wrong, and mistook my middle name as my last name. As a result all of these appointments are for some guy called Simeon Williams.) I go in to see the doctor and she asks how I feel. I tell her fine. Then she tells me my liver is pretty lousy. I tell her, well I've been a pretty lousy liver lately. Get it? A lousy liver? Like, I haven't been good at living lately, because I almost died? Okay, that exchange didn't actually happen.

She shows me the numbers, although I'm not sure exactly what they mean. For however this liver function test works, the number should be between 4 and 40 for a healthy person. Last week, when she was "worried" about it, my number was 76. Today? 536. Wonderful. Again, I don't know what those numbers are in regard to, but when you don't want something over 40, and you get a 536, well, I don't think that's good. But at the same time, at least I'm not being ambiguous in my illnesses. My body really isn't half-assing these things. My body says, "Oh, you're supposed to have 300,000 platelets, well I'm going down to a thousand! Liver function test shouldn't be over 40? Take all 536 of these!"

The doctor didn't think it was good either. She says we're gonna stop the medicine I'm on. No more steroids, which means that my platelets could/should be taking a nosedive any day now. However, and here is the best part, while the liver problem could be a side effect of the steroids, she actually thinks it's something completely unrelated. We've just sorta accidentally stumbled upon God's next scheme to take me out. So my liver is screwed, which probably isn't related to my other mysterious disease, but just to be safe we need to stop the treatment of my original disease, which should cause a relapse in which my body stops producing platelets again.

What all this means is that I'm headed for another extended hospital stay, to hopefully avoid liver failure while at the same time being able to receive intravenous treatment when my platelets eventually abandon me again. My doctor didn't actually want me to leave today, but I told her I had to work, so she gave me some pills. The "good" news here is that starting Wednesday, I have a 5-day weekend because of the lunar new year, which is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. As a result, I won't be missing work. I will, however, have to spend all or most of that vacation back in the hospital. Not the dreaded emergency ward, though I suppose I could swing by and say hello to my old pals.

I have to go back to the hospital tomorrow for an ultrasound on my liver and for them to run a bunch of tests or whatever. Should be a real blast. If the tests show what they expect them to show, then on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning it's back to the hospital for good.

If I ever again get a clean bill of health, I'll bet you I get hit by a bus later that day.