ESL Adventures

Your Korea Word of the Day is…

Uisa (we-sah)

In English…

Doctor

Going to the doctor here can be hit or miss if you don’t speak Korean. When I lived in Yangsan, there was a health clinic right across the street from the school. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a regular staff, just rotating doctors from PNU (Pusan National University). I developed bronchitis early in the spring. I happen to have quite a few drug allergies. I told the doctor there that I couldn’t take penicillin (which was the first thing he prescribed). He then rewrote the prescription for Amoxicillin. Okay…. that would be a penicillin derivative. So I tell him that I can’t take that either. So he rewrites the prescription for Ampicillin. Ummm… yeah. That would be a penicillin derivative too. At that point I gave up. I had a broad spectrum antibiotic I had brought with me. So I just took that.

I was a bit anxious when I went to the clinic on Thursday. I had no idea how well the doctor would speak English or how competent he was (believe me, I’ve had quite a few incompetent American doctors, so this isn’t a dig at Korean doctors). So I get in there and explain what was wrong. His English was excellent. He worked on an American army base for a while.

Turns out that I had a sinus infection, two ear infections and bronchitis. Yeah. It was a great way to spend my one week of summer break. He ended up writing me a prescription for an antibiotic (one that I can actually take), a steroid, a decongestant, an antihistamine, a bronchodilator, and a cough suppressant containing codeine. Amazingly he didn’t include Tylenol in the mix. It seemed like every prescription I got in Yangsan contained Tylenol.

So between the steroids making me nasty (a common side effect), the bronchodilator making me wired (again a common side effect) and the codeine making me loopy (you guessed it, another common side effect), I’ve been in a strange mood.

I’ve actually spent the bulk of my vacation asleep in bed. It’s hard to do anything when you can’t breathe.

So tomorrow it’s back to work. At least I’m off the steroids so I won’t bite off the head of the first kid to bug me.