by Fatty Mortoff
Daily inconveniences of life as an expat in Korea are quite
similar to symptoms of the piles:
it is hard to believe such little things could be such a big pain
in the ass!
Don't get me wrong, I do not hate Korea! As a matter
of fact I love Korea as much as much as the next die-hard expat.
I am happy here. I love my boss, my students, and all the little
ankle biters that follow me around to see if "hi" really works
with white folks. I eat Korean three times a day, and probably
eat more dog than any Korean. I do feel, however, that denial
and suppression are ridiculous ways to cope with anything.
We all have our problems here, we all have our opinions, and we
all have times when the only way to deal is to simply tell it
like it is . . .
To prove that I am, at least, a half-way objective
judge of things both Eastern and Western, I will mention the case
of Chinese medicine or Han Yak. Any expat who has received
acupuncture in both East and West knows that Western doctors clearly
practice Eastern medicine wrong. I have been to several Chinese
medicine doctors both in America and in Korea It is obvious that
the methods, approach, attention to necessary detail, and intentions
of the Chinese medicine doctors in Korea and America are different,
and clearly, the Western approach to Eastern medicine is ridiculous
and false. This is because Eastern and Western mindset are different.
Living in Korea has taught me how crucial mindset is in the practice
of medicine and other methodical skills.
. . . . . so now to our main story . . . .
After being directed into the room by three giggling
young nurses, I lay on the examination table for my first ever
rectal inspection. Upon the walls of the office hung large pictures
of the doctor's family. Alongside these pictures, the detailed
diagrams of various types of brown and puckered up rectums. The
doctor lubed up the long metal tube, a video apparatus, and shoved
it on home. I felt raped, an impulse to squeal. I now know, from
this innocent inspection, why it is that convicts are so impressed
by the mental message sodomy projects to victims. What effect
would years of rectal inspections have on the mental health of
this doctor? What nightmares must his wife suffer to satiate the
hunger of this doctor's twisted imagination? I remained curled
up and prone as the Doc pulled up my drawers, then using the smelly,
condom covered tube, he pointed to project images of my anus and
its five pink swolen hemorrhoids.
The next day I was wheeled into surgery. I was injected
with a large bottle of antibiotics which caused me to vomit larger
quantities of day-glo green bile. I mentioned to the doctor my
first experience with whiskey, and he giggled happily while rolling
me into a prone position for inserting a very long and thin needle
into my spinal collumn. The spinal tap did not hurt, and soon
a soft wave of numbness splashed through my lower extremities.
Morphine?Would I finally get to experience the ecstatic sensations
so vividly described in Bill Burrough's book, Junky? But my mind
was quite clear and the doctor immediately attempted to yank out
my entrails, via my butt-hole. I breathed out and looked about
the softly lit metallic room, recalling specific scenes from Jacob's
Ladder. My butt cheeks, and then my head, jerked quickly from
side to side.
"Can you teach private classes?" the doctor asked
while pounding, it sounded like, on a small hammer and nail. I
said "uh-huh." He said, "but isn't that illegal?" And I said,
"moh lah yoh, I don't know," which again caused Doc to giggle.
Then he said, "do you ever suffer discomfort while deffecating?"
to which I replied, "sometimes." He said, "constipation? Diarhia?
I think you have a sensitive rectum."
The doctor and I discussed age, level, fees and
location for a private class, as the pain of the tugging extended
into my lowers abdomen. I am man who frequently cries from emotion.
I cried at Forrest Gump, Bambi, and Good Will Hunting. I cry when
angry at my wife or in any way mentally upset, but until the day
of this surgery, I'd never cried from physical pain. At the time
of this surgery, I counted single drops of tear, and moaned, babbling
obsecenities aimed specifically at Korea and Korean rectal surgeons.
I began to think seriously about asking the doctor to just call
it quits. "How did you meet your wife?" He asked, "do you like
Kimchi?"
As I was wheeled out to my bed, I noticed
that not only could I not feel my lower extremities, but I could
not command them to move. I was rolled onto a bed and told that
feeling would come back in five hours. The most frightening part
of spinal anesthesia is not being able to locate one's penis.
I had no idea if my balls were swollen, rapped around my leg or
somehow twisted into an unhealthy position. I touched them. It
felt as if I was touching something unconnected, touching
large water soaked cotton balls. I still had no clue as to how
my balls were reacting to all of this, and it was very, very scary.
Somehow I managed to get my balls out of my thoughts and even
swoon myself into a semi-conscious state, allowing time to pass
a bit quicker.
When I regained consciousness, a homely-but-Korean
nurse was kneeling down at my side, inserting into my arm what
I hoped was a healthily regulated balloon of morphine. It was
morphine, but not as much as I'd hoped for. My bed was scabbed
over from five hours of anal bleeding, I could move my legs, almost
feel my balls, and needed badly to fart. This however I would
not do, fearing the pain, and sensing an apparantly scabbed over
cork stopping up my ass hole. The nurse directed me to my sitz
bath, a shallow toilet of hot-bubbling antibiotic water for cleaning
out ruined anuses. After ten minutes of pleasant bubbling below,
I lined my drawers with maxi-pads and went to bed.
The next day my rectum felt pretty good. I spent
the day chatting with homely nurses about their perspective blind
dates with handsome boys from my university. Intermittently I
cleaned my wrecked rectum in sitz bath. Around ten at night I
heard a loud thumping on the wall. I assumed it was someone's
portable i.v banging around. Then a loud moaning carried
into my room. I opened the door to find a women of about age 60,
collapsed on the bathroom floor, bleeding and crying for her mother.
I shuffled to the nurses office, interrupting something between
the nurse and one of her "just a friend," boyfriends. Apparantly
this old woman managed to drag her numb and paralysed legs to
the bathroom, even attempting to shit, before realizing that her
entire lower body did not work, whereupon she plopped upon the
floor forcing us to literally drag her back to her bed.
While propping up the poor lady, a nurse noticed
my i.v tube was clogged. The two nurses took me to the tape-up-the-patient-room
and attempted to unclog my i.v tube by blowing into it orally.
When that did not work they tried using the plastic plunger part
of a syringe, which again did not work. I suggested a new tube
and they laughed at me. Out came a needle. While one nurse was
plunging, the other nurse was trying to shoot me up. The shoot-up
nurse was unable to get a good vein. She slapped my wrist and
inserted the needle, and as blood did not show up in the plunger,
she dug the needle around inside my arm, pushing and pulling it
about, looking for a strong source of blood. I asked her if she
had ever used a needle before and she laughed at me. I laughed
too. She thrust the needle, point first, at the other nurse and
said "Take this." I have noticed this about Koreans. They
will carefully, gently hand over the most harmless glass of soju,
using two hands. Replace this glass with a rusty blade or sharp
razor and they will thrust the sharp end at you without hesitation,
without so much as a directive glance. So the recieving nurse
reached for the dirty dagger, as if it was a Q-tip, but the the
thrusting nurse dropped the needle too soon and it fell, again
point first, towards our sandalled feet. All of us managed to
move in time, and I protested as one nurse cleaned the dropped
needle and motioned towards my hand. I suggested a new needle
and again they laughed. Again, I too laughed. I suspect I was
laughing at them for the same reason they were laughing at me.
We each thought the other stupid.
For some reason I allowed them to insert this bent
and dirty syringe into my arm, and for some reason I am still
here to tell the tale. I still have the balloon of morphine at
my side, and my arm is alive, moveable and pink. No gangrene thus
far. However, I am (once again) convinced that the best place
to recieve Western medicine is the West. The next time I need
homeopathic Chinese medicine I will recieve it here in Korea.
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