I’ve started working more on my studying of Korean, which went on hiatus after my last surgery. Other than that, I’m just watching movies and staying indoors alone. I’m hoping to push myself a little more each day so I don’t go totally crazy being stuck at home, doing leg lifts to strengthen the broken leg.

On that front, my muscle is starting to return. My right leg is still thinner than the left one, but the difference is definitely smaller. I also crossed a barrier so that my leg doesn’t look like it is bald anymore. It isn’t back to normal, but the hair transitioned from “unnoticeable” to “noticeable” this weekend. 

My mental state is relatively good, especially in the mornings when I wake up, but at times I sink and feel like my leg won’t ever return to normal. Some kind of combination of loneliness, frustration and fear. Despite this, I feel stronger each day and my leg feels much healthier than it did before. I also have full range of motion in my toes again, meaning the ankle is the only thing that needs serious rehabilitation at this point. If it wasn’t in the cast and I wasn’t using crutches, I’d actually feel normal. While sitting here, typing this, I feel like how I did before the leg was broken in the first place. I think this is a good sign, but I’m no doctor. I’m hoping to slip out and watch a movie this weekend, if I’m feeling up for the trip. A little at a time, I guess, regardless of how mind-numbingly boring it all is. 

As an aside, the weather is terribly rainy, which makes me worry about my leg getting wet. While I hope for the rainy season to pass, I know that the month afterwards will be nothing but sweltering heat. When that comes, I’ll be back to wishing for the rainy season. 

When I arrived, the boss was astonished at how much better I looked compared to when I was in the hospital. She said that my condition seemed considerably better than she thought. So she offered for me to return to my old position, but I wouldn’t need to teach for the next three weeks or so. She’s decided to offer me time to recover before I go right back into teaching and I could of course return to living in my old apartment. 

I was a bit excited about moving to Yeonsu, but then I decided to go ahead and return to my old school. The Yeonsu job would probably be easier than my old one, but this way I get more time to recover and I can work with my old co-workers. Then I’m not gambling with this other school either. I think that’s a better deal. That solves my homelessness issue pretty briskly and I don’t have to travel a far distance from Bupyeong, which is the area of the city I’ve always thought of as home. 

I felt a bit bad about the other school’s manager, since we spent a lot of time together in the interview and it really seemed like a sure thing for him.  Now he’s stuck hunting a new teacher. But this seems like the best plan for taking care of my leg and I will get to stay with the co-workers I already know I like. 

It was actually a difficult decision, but I don’t feel like gambling while my health is in the state that it is in. Additionally, I’ll be given time to heal, which will be better for me. 

Today I found that I had pushed myself a bit hard. I woke up with sore muscles and really tired, but I hadn’t slept long enough, so I went back to sleep. After a few more hours of sleep, I woke up feeling better, but still a little rundown. I think yesterday I pushed myself to the limit and the rainy weather today is also taking a toll. Presently, my boss wants me to come in for a couple hours a day to get used to the school again and see students, but I’m not teaching yet. It’s a little awkward feeling, since I’m currently sitting at my desk typing this while my co-workers are all teaching. After class I’ll stand up and mingle with the students, but then I’ll be back to doing nothing. I guess it is just part of the transition. 

The story of a fired foreigner trying to get revenge isn’t weird or shocking at all. But the story of a foreigner fired to avoid giving him a bonus is also not at all unusual. So naturally, it could go either way. Because I’m a shrewd person, I’ve grown skeptical. Because I’m a homeless person, I’m not giving up on the job outright. I’ve requested the school provide contact information for a current employee and one that finished their contract so I can have a chance to talk to them. If they have several happy workers or people who completed contracts successfully, then it isn’t a problem. 

If they don’t, I might have to give up on that job, unfortunately. I’ve had bad luck this year. I don’t need any more. 

Fairly early I was visited by a banker and the financial guy from the hospital. Squaring away my insurance and my finances. In Korea, it is illegal to leave a hospital without paying. It isn’t like the US, where you’d just get billed down the line. However, the rates are much lower and nothing is inflated like US healthcare. Regardless, I’ve racked up a large bill in my 114 day stay and the course of my three surgeries (at this hospital).

Digging and struggling, I’ve secured a bed for Monday (in my old apartment) and I can stay on a friend’s couch for up to a week, giving me eight days of shelter. My Visa is still sponsored and protected by my old employer until next year, so I shouldn’t have trouble on that front. That just leaves job hunting. I’ve got potentially two interviews on Tuesday, although that isn’t set in stone. One is for a job that sounds quite good, but would have me moving a bit to the west. Puts me a little farther from Seoul, but it’s a small sacrifice. I’ve started the process of assembling the paperwork for the University position in the south, even though the location is even worse. Unfortunately, my old University in the states has made transcripts hard to obtain (even just unofficial ones) without a formal request, which is difficult to fulfill with my limited means here in the hospital. I’ve decided to move forward with it on Monday. 

I’ll try to keep posting, although I may disappear for a bit. Since I suspect I’ll be spending a lot of time in Cafes, stealing wifi and a place to be, I should be able to keep updating. 

The last image of my leg before the operation to remove the fixation.

There was a bit of miss communication among the doctors with exactly how the device would be removed. My surgeon told me I’d get no anesthetic and the whole procedure would be about ten or fifteen minutes. But the assisting intern doctor said I’d have local anesthetic and sutures at the end. It turned out that the surgeon was right. No painkillers what so ever. He used a wrench to loosen the halo, snapped the wires with wire cutters and pulled the bone spikes out one by one. I had expected to have more soft tissue pain than anything and I expected the through-and-through wires to be the most painful.

Didn’t even feel them. And the bone spikes were the worst kind of pain, but it was rather brief. I laughed nervously and counted the spikes off as I felt them pull out. My count would then be confirmed by a metal “ding” of a spike falling into a metal tray. I couldn’t see what the spikes looked like after they came out of the leg, but I was curious. The worst one by far was the one in the ankle. 

After the surgery, there was just mild pain, but for some reason, waves of nausea. I fought with the urge to throw up for most of the day. I didn’t take any kind of pain shot because the pain was that obnoxious level where you feel thoroughly uncomfortable, but it isn’t that intense. Painkillers, especially the shot I get here, is hard on my liver. Or kidneys. I don’t remember exactly what the nurse said, but I know it is one of those filtration organs. Either way, I need those guys.

A lot of friends checked in on me to see how I was doing afterwards, which is always a nice feeling. At night, I took the pain shot and went to sleep. They woke me at 2am for an antibiotic shot. I struggled to get back to sleep and I took a second pain shot around 4am. Somewhere around 5am a nurse came in and talked to me about saline for a good 10 or 20 minutes. I understood most of what she was saying, but I didn’t understand the punchline. My Korean has improved, but I’m not fluent or anything. Eventually she left and the saline wasn’t attached to my body. I either ended up refusing it, or it was optional and I didn’t opt in. 

Today I talked with another nurse and pointed out I’d rather be sleeping at 2am. She laughed and agreed with me and pointed out I’d get about three antibiotic shots a day until my final surgery. Afterward I spent some time with my mother and an orderly named Andy. We had a good time eating and talking. 

As a whole, my leg isn’t bothering me without the metal fixation, but there is a strange sensation of something missing. I had grown accustom to having that metal bar on the inside of my leg. I switch at times from a calm acceptance of my future operation and an overwhelming dread. I must admit I’m a bit scared of the operation and somewhat worried about what may happen post-surgery. But there is no alternative. We all have to do what we have to do. 

For those who are not that close to me, I broke my leg in the winter while I have been living in Korea. It has been touched up and I intended on telling the entire story. At this time, I won’t be finishing that story. Instead, I will quickly catch you up to my current state. 

That break in my bone cracked my entire state of living. Following the break, I have been diagnosed with Osteomyelitis – a bone infection – and because my initial doctor failed to catch the infection quickly, my new doctor was at one point talking about amputating the leg. I had an operation that resulted in infected tissue being cut from my leg and external fixation has been applied to my leg. To be more direct, there are a half dozen nails driven into my bones and a few wires that pass through one side of my heel and out the other. This is what hold me together while I deal with antibiotic therapy. For a period of six weeks, I had two injections of antibiotics per day. Eventually, the antibiotics took too much of a toll on my body, resulting in a harsh allergic reaction that tore up my skin, gave me a fever and made me feel like death. For two weeks afterward, I switched to an IV drip anti-biotic. It eventually triggered severe dehydration because drugs are not without side-effects. For an additional six weeks I took pill antibiotics, which eventually caused extreme nausea and an additional skin problem. Part of the nausea may be psychosomatic, although this is my personal theory. I become violently nauseous exactly at the hospital meal times and eating the hospital food at night causes me to gag and heave. If I leave the hospital to get food I don’t feel excited to eat it, but the reaction isn’t as strong. I think I’ve just reached my limit for eating the hospital food on a daily basis. 

At this time, I’m sitting and waiting for my final operation to be scheduled. When it is performed, the metal will be pulled from my bones and I will get an incision at my knee. And IM nail, which is more like a metal post than a nail, will be driven through the top of my bone. My doctor told me about the procedure hesitantly. He expected a negative reaction since I have been through such a procedure before. It is quite similar to my first operation that was performed by a different surgeon and became infected. I understand why he thought I might become uncomfortable, but the most efficient surgery with the lowest complications is the best surgery. Just because I suffered through the complications doesn’t suddenly made the other surgeries less likely to have complications. It doesn’t make their success rates higher. 

Perhaps my outlook is warped. That is one thing I have thought as I have spent these last four months in this hospital in Korea. When I found out I could lose my leg, I felt drained for a day or two. I think I cried a little. But when it comes down to it, what are our alternatives? Raging against fate? Cursing God? By the third day I was smiling and joking again. Sure, I was afraid, but if they cut my leg off, I just have to live with that. I’d give a prosthetic and I would live my life the best I can. If my surgery is a success, I’ll go through rehabilitation and live my life the best I can. The outcome from the perspective is actually very similar. 

In the process of being in the hospital, I lost my job. How couldn’t I? A small school can’t survive with one-sixth of the staff missing. I felt a twisted pride that I was very difficult to replace. At one point when my boss and I had a fight, she claimed I’d have trouble getting a job at another school and that I could be replaced easily. I smiled to myself when my friends offered me jobs and she couldn’t find anyone to take my place for a couple months. I knew it was hard on my poor co-workers, but nothing feels better than having your value confirmed. Although, losing the job meant I lost my home, which was paid for by my school. 

After I had broken my leg, but before I was re-admitted to the hospital, I began dating a girl as well. She was very tall and attractive, although in a slightly uncommon way. She was a guitar teacher and she was in an indie band. In many ways, she was more or less my ideal type. But after I was re-admitted to the hospital, I have never seen her again. I got one message that she was simply too busy and then that was it. She’s been gone ever since. Perhaps this would have happened even if I didn’t end up in the hospital. However I can’t help but feel like things could have been different.

While I don’t entirely live in the most frugal manner, I am quite good at saving money. I had no debt when I came to Korea, and I had saved a decent amount of money while still purchasing myself the style of clothes I like, doing what I wanted with my friends and purchasing a new laptop. But at this time, those savings had to be used for my hospital bills. Being sick here in Korea is much more affordable than being sick in the United States, but four surgeries and six months of hospitalization isn’t cheap anywhere. 

So here I am. No girlfriend, No job, No home, No money. And I’m in a wheelchair. 6000 miles away from the United States. And yet, this is alright. I’ve experienced so much pain, yet it fades away. I’ve lost so much, but I can always rebuilt. My grandfather says that we shouldn’t worry about things we couldn’t change. When I was working for newspapers and documentaries, I couldn’t understand. How could you not be worried about politics? About human cruelty? How could you blame me for growing cynical and jaded? So disillusioned and frustrated with the job market and the situation in the United States that I ended up become a teacher on the other side of the Earth?

Now, I can see that it isn’t so hard. There are things in life that cannot be changed. If, back on that snowy day on December, I had waited in the cold and took the bus, I wouldn’t have broken my leg. But I can’t regret that decision. How could I have known? It isn’t like I can change what happened. All I can do is look forward. I’ve made plans to remain in Korea and I will be replacing my job to the best of my ability. I’ll meet a girl who hopefully will stick around if I’m unlucky enough to be injured again. I was able to learn a lot of Korean in the hospital. It’s so easy to be weighed down by petty little things and to grow frustrated with things. But you’re doing it to yourself. 

Presently, I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and I find myself identifying with the protagonist, who says

 “I guess it’s all a matter of attitude. You could let a lot of things bother you if you wanted to – the rules, the jerks who think they’re hot shit, the roommates doing Radio Calisthenics at six-thirty in the morning. But if you figure it’s pretty much the same anywhere you go, you can manage”

This holds true in everything. If you figure this is just how things are, you can manage through anything. 

Until next time.

James

Saturday night: My boss brought me chicken to eat. Then sleep.

Sunday: 8am, Breakfast. I need my bed elevated so I can even reach my food. My boss came after to help me brush my teeth. Noon, Lunch. Later, visits from some friends and co-workers. 5pm Dinner.

Monday: Same schedule of food. Less visits. A lot of naps. A bit of Korean TV. Simple conversations with my roommates. My doctor visited and said that I would get a nail in my leg to help the bone heal.

It looked like this:

Definitely not what I call a nail.

I asked if it would hurt. The doctor didn’t mess around. His response was that it would hurt much worse than the original break. But then I would be recovering.

Tuesday finally came, the day of my surgery. In the morning, a simplified breakfast. Just soup and a little rice. No lunch. My boss was concerned because no one was there to care for me. Usually people are working on Tuesdays around 2pm. I managed to convince Sue to come and help me after she finished work at 6pm.

And then it was time. Around 2pm, nurses transfered me to a wheelchair and took my into the operating room. Understandably, I was terrified. No one could communicate with me, no one was there to help me, and they were about to cut my leg open and shove a titanium rod in there.

When I got into the surgery room, an anesthesiologist was there.

“Alright, get on this table,” he said, “Then curl up like this,” He made a gesture like a person rolling up into a ball.

“What? Uh, ok,” So I curled up a little on the table.

“Like a shrimp. In a little ball,” He said.

“Uh, my leg is broken. Fetal position is a bit impossible,” I replied.

“Ignore your leg and the pain, it will only take a second,”

So I did it. I curled myself into a ball.

“You’ll feel a dull pain because I’m sticking a needle in your spine,”

“Dull pain?” I laughed. And then found out he wasn’t down playing it. It really was a dull pain.

“Huh? Foreigners have harder backs than Koreans,” He said.

Now, that last line made me panic a little. What does that mean? Did the needle not go through? Do I need more?

“How do you feel?” He asked as he got me straightened out on the table.

“Scared.” I said.

“Lift your left leg,” he said. I tried, but I couldn’t get it more than a cm off the table. “Good,” he said, “Still scared?”

“A little,”

Then he punched me in my right shin. You know, where my leg is completely broken. I felt nothing.

“That was fracture site,” he laughed, “Now how do you feel?”

“Oh, well. Fine. Let’s do this!”

During the surgery, I was awake. And freezing cold. My hands kept losing circulation. For the most part, I felt nothing. A curtain blocked the surgery from view for the most part. The surgeon spoke English, so I could talk to him a bit. The surgery sounded like they were building a shed around my leg. I just heard metal hitting metal. Power drills. Staple guns. Some kind of ratchet. At one point, the doctor stepped back and I could see a huge blood covered drill, which isn’t terrible comforting. For the first two hours or so, I felt nothing. And then, I found I could move my left foot a little. And then I began to regain feeling. So I told my surgeon.

“I’m almost finished. Can you hang in there?” he asked.

“Do it. I’ll survive,” I said. I gritted my teeth and held in there. I slowly started to gain dull sensation, but nothing serious. Afterward, I was transfered back to my bed and told not to lift my head. They stuck me on some morphine. There was mild pain in my leg, but nothing serious.

In my bed, I felt better. Now I could recover. Before, I was just wasting time. When I picked up my phone, I had a message from Sue. She said she’d be there by the time I woke up. I laughed, since I had never gone to sleep. An hour or so later, she appeared. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Slowly, the pain in my leg increased. At first, it was nothing serious, but by the time 8pm rolled around, it hurt much more than the original break. Just intense pain. Like someone was scraping the contents of my leg out with a scoop. Around 10pm, I was allowed to lift my head and finally drink water. Then I ate some rice porridge  which, at that time was the tastiest thing I had ever eaten. Afterward, I ended up having a horrible fever, so Sue got some ice from the nurses and helped cool me down a bit. She really helped out. After she left, my boss arrived to check on me. Then was a long painful night of attempting to sleep.

So this story starts early in December. To be precise, I think it was the 8th. I know it was a Saturday. Incheon suddenly decided that all foreigner English teachers needed to take a seminar once a year. Failure to attend could result in the school being closed, which is quite a pain, so naturally, my roommates and I went. It was actually a cool seminar….. If I had just arrived in Korea. I’ve been here something like 10 months. I don’t need much of an introduction to Korea and I don’t need to be sold on the idea of living here. Anyway, with that unpleasantness out of the way, now it was time for the weekend! 

So first, I called my friend Sue (English name) and invited her out for lunch. I had plans with her a few hours later, so I thought it would be nice to meet her earlier for lunch. Unfortunately, she was busy. So I left my apartment to go get lunch by myself. When I got up to the bus stop, my bus was just passing. I was going to run in the snow to try to catch it and often the bus won’t let you in anyway, so I thought, “Hell, I’ll just walk to the station. I’ve done that hundreds of times.” It was quite cold, but I thought it would be alright. 

So I walk, and I get about half way there. There is an outlet store roughly halfway between my apartment and the station. Usually, I stay on the side with the outlet and walk to the station, which is a not-very-scenic route next to a bus depot and and parking lot. I was in a good mood, so I thought I’d cross the street and walk next to the park. A change of pace! And lo, the traffic light just changed so I can cross! So I began to cross the street, and when I was a few paces from the other side, my foot slipped. Things get a bit blurry here. I remember that my right leg moved to the left, and I remember a sharp cracking sound. I don’t really remember hitting the ground, but I remember looking down and seeing my foot twist in an impossible angle. I remember crying out and dozens of hands grasping my body and pulling me to the curb. I fell. And my leg was broken. 

After that point, my memory was sharp. Sitting, leaning against a lamp post in the gray, mucky snow. I shouted in Korean for someone to call 119 (the 911 of Korea) and then calmly leaned against the rail. In the crowd, a foreigner stepped forward.

“Hey man, what happened?” He said.

“I fell. My leg is broken.” I said.

“Did a car hit you?” He said.

“I don’t think so. I think I just slipped and landed wrong,” I said, “Can you wait with me until the ambulance gets here? I don’t want to pass out.”

“Yeah, sure,” He said.

So we made small talk. We talked about the leg a little, but for obvious reasons I kind of wanted to steer away from that particular topic. At once point I tried to call the head teacher of my school, but couldn’t get through. I also called Sue, but also couldn’t get through. I ended up sending a text to Sue saying, “I’m sorry, but I will be late this evening. I broke my leg,” and to the head teacher “My leg is broken, please help me,”

Eventually, and ambulance drove right past on accident, and then came back around to pick me up. It took about five minutes for the paramedics to get my toes pointed the right way and to splint me leg up enough to travel. The foreigner and I parted ways, and I was now in an ambulance. The guy in the back had a series of questions for me and a look on his face that said I don’t speak English, how do I deal with this guy. So I told him I speak some Korean, and then answered all his questions. Then I gave him my Alien Registration Card so he could have my address. That was much easier than trying to recite the damn thing. 

When I got to the Emergency Room, I was still calm. I apologized to several cute nurses for my poor Korean, but they laughed and said not to apologize. Eventually, a doctor talked to me for a couple minutes about what happened. Then another doctor came up. 

“Hello, James. Do you know what is wrong with you?” The doctor asked in English.

“Yeah, my leg is broken,” I smirked.

“Woah there,” he said, “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. How do you know it is broken?”

“First, my toes aren’t supposed to point that way. Second, the look on the girl’s face when she lifted my pant’s leg,” I then laughed.

“Well, let’s not get ahead of the facts. We’ll x-ray you first,” He said. I laughed and shook my head. 

“Come on, you know it’s broken. We need an x-ray to see how bad it is. Give it to me straight,” I said. It seemed ludicrous that the doctor was doubting my leg was broken. 

Next, I was rolled into the x-ray room, which meant a lot of rotation of my leg. I knew then that I broke both bones in my calf. Tibia and fibula. My foot was an independent part of my body, no only attached as normal. I could still move my toes, but everything hurt like hell.

After that, I calmly laid on my table waiting for the doctor. My thought was that they would set my leg, I would have a cast and crutches and I’d be out of there. I also hoped I would get some painkillers. Finally, the doctor came back.

“It’s broken. Both tibia and fibula.” he said.

“Haha! I told you it was broken,” I laughed and grimaced slightly.

“You need surgery. Do you want it here or do you want to be transfered to another hospital,”

“Oh shit. Oh man that isn’t good at all,” I laughed and put my hand over my eyes, “Damn, you’re going to put metal in my leg aren’t you. I need my boss,”

“Well, we’ll give you a pain shot, then we’ll reduce you leg and get the bones lined up,” he said, “It will hurt a little,”

“Come on, it won’t hurt a little. It’ll be the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, won’t it,” I laughed as they started to roll me into another room. I pulled out my phone and began frantically trying to get a hold of someone I worked with. A nurse gave me a shot.

Then the doctor lifted my leg and twisted the bones back into place. I cried out and gripped the side of the stretcher I was on. My muscles tightened.

“Relax, don’t tense up!” he said.

“How the hell do you do that?” I asked, laughing though my gritted teeth. And then I had my answer. I let out a breath, and my body lost all tension. I was relaxed. Perhaps it was the shot I got earlier. 

While they continued twisting my leg, my phone rang. It was my head teacher. She said she would be there as soon as she could. She asked me where I was. I handed the phone to the doctor. After getting my leg set, they rolled me behind a curtain to rest. Now I felt safer and I had a pain killer in my veins. I laid there for a minute or two, then blacked out. 

Suddenly, I woke up. And my head teacher, Sunny, came around the corner. 

“Oh my God, James, What happened?” She asked. And for the first time since the fall, I cracked. 

“I fell, Sunny,” I said quietly, “And now, I’ll be late for my date tonight,” 

I laughed, but now tears came out too. 

“I need surgery, Sunny, it is really bad,” now I wasn’t smiling, “I’ll have a scar and a metal plate like my father,”

And then I cried. Then I laughed a bit. 

“I can’t stop,” I said through the tears. 

“Don’t worry, it’ll be alright,” Sunny said.

Now then, sorry for the long stretch of text with no pictures. This is of course, not the end of the story, but the story is very long. Tomorrow or later tonight I will type up Part 2 of my epic, extremely painful adventure. 

As….people….may know? Actually… let’s try that again. I go to Culcom, which is a language exchange cafe. I’ve been going there pretty regularly since I got my phone and I’ve made numerous friends there. I’ve also learned a fair amount of Korean and I haven’t paid anything for it, which is fantastic. Anyway, a week or so after starting there, the manager’s cat appeared. Nabi is her name. Now, I’m allergic to cats, so I was rather concerned with Nabi’s presence, but for some reason I have no reaction unless I pick up and play with Nabi, so she must have less dander than most cats or something.

Anyway, Nabi got pretty annoying the first few weeks I encountered her because she was in heat. Always wandering around making that weird, mournful cat sound that cats in heat normally make.

And then she stopped.

And then she started getting huge. Nabi became pregnant. Last week, it looked like a furry bowling ball had been taped to the poor animal. I was afraid she was going to explode before she managed to come to term. And then, this week….. Well…. This happened:

Actually, eight of those happened. There is a huge pile of kittens now. Nabi looks deflated and wanders the cafe aimlessly when she isn’t feeding the kittens. Even though I’m allergic, I couldn’t help but pick one up and take pictures with it. They’re small and adorable. I was worried that the cats would grow up and there would be 9 cats wandering the cafe, making it impossible for me to study there with my allergies, but I’ve been told they’ll be sold/given away after they get a bit bigger and healthier.

For me, seeing these tiny kittens was a highlight of my day, but when I got to work and showed the photos, no one was really that impressed. Maybe you just have to see them in person.

I also got a fan from one of my co-teachers, Annie. Her mother hand-painted the design on it. Having the fan is pretty helpful since it has gotten so much hotter these days.