Surgery complete; all's well in Mudville

The surgery on my knee is done, and I'm back home after a night in the hospital. Everything went well. The docter cleaned up the tear in my meniscus as well as some other damage he found while he was in there (he gave me a video of the proceedure which, I have to say, is fairly weird. It reminds me a lot of one of those Jacque Cousteau documentaries of life at the bottom of the ocean). One of the good things so far is that, with the exception of the 6 or so hours after the operation there has been very little pain. I have to admit I'm rather surprised at that. I realise of course that some of that has to do with the pain meds they gave me in the hospital, but even when those wore off, there has been no more than a dull ache. I haven't had any pain since last night and slept comfortably.

Now let's talk about Korean hospitals. Now the place I was in is more of a surgical clinic than an actual hospital. It's smaller, and you get a little more attention from the nurses than you would in the bigger hospitals here (fewer patients, etc.). The thing about Korean hospitals is the staff does not, nor are they expected to take care of a patients personal needs, i.e: food, bathing, emptying bedpans, etc. This is supposed to be taken care of by the patients family. If you go to any Korean hospital room where a Korean patient is staying, the room is usually full of family members taking care of the patient. The medical staff is only in charge of things like changing bandages, taking vitals, and changing IV bags. For example, when I checked into the hospital, they offered me a single or double occupancy room. I initially chose the double room because it's cheaper, but when I was brought to the room, there was a patient, his wife, and his mother both of whom seemed to be camped out for the duration. Needless to say I turned around and took the single.

Now if you're a foreigner, you have to rely on your friends. This is problematic. It has nothing to do with people being unwilling to help out, it has more to do with them having the time (or for some, the transportation means) to run errands for you. This is the main reason I wanted to spend as little time there as possible. The doctor wanted me to stay for three days, but I was having none of that. As it is, it took him some effort to convince me to stay the night after surgery. I'm much better able to take care of myself at home, and it's part of my character that I don't want to unnecessarily inconvenience anybody. As it is, I'm going to have to rely on people to shuttle me back and forth to class next week because I'll never make it on crutches.

Anyway, I'll be on crutches for the next two weeks, which while certainly a pain in the ass, isn't really THAT bad. I have to head back to the clinic every two days to get my bandages changed and the knee checked out. I get the stitches out next Tuesday. I should be walking around on my own sometime during the first week of September. In the mean time, I have the week off, so I'll spend it downloading movies, watching Nationals baseball, and chilling out.