Today I went back to the hospital and after having to talk to three people waited outside the doctor’s office. I immediately told the doctor that of course I knew the x-rays didn’t show anything, but instead of saying some weird stuff (like the general practitioner had) he poked around in various professional types of ways to identify the type of pain and how I was experiencing it. We talked very comfortably in Korean and he understood my concerns about treating symptoms but leaving the root issues alone (and wasn’t anti-traditional medicine, but told me that their hospital can’t recommend anyone to another hospital where traditional medicine is practiced). He did, however, convince me to get this procedure done through both identifying my issue as tendinitis in my upper shin (near the knee) plus meniscus issues with both knees (this is what Jason Tsou, taiji teacher extraordinaire also said, and his agreement with Jason made me more confident he knew what he was talking about). He wanted to inject fluid under my knee cap (I guess that’s where) which is something my mom’s had done, too. So I was a bit hesitant asking him if wasn’t that the sort of thing people who are a bit older than I do, but he insisted that it has a greater effect if younger people have this treatment and may prevent more serious steps later on. Georgy checked it out on the internet as I hassled with the insurance issues (ultimately I didn’t pay anything but it took a bit to straighten it out) and went to the window to pick up the vial of fluid (I took the photo with my fingers so you could see how large the vial was). The internet scuttlebutt seemed to be that the procedure is common, safe and effective, so I went back to orthopedics and was swabbed with iodine and alcohol and then the needle went in. That was painful. I mean, scarily painful. As in I used every English cuss word in just about 1 second.
I made some copies at Yonsei GSIS and then ran into 소영 Soyeong, we had a nice long talk on the street about the evolution of scholarship.
In the evening I went to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum, and 김은주 Kim Eunju told me to take it easy (it had felt a little weird at different times during the day), but I still danced at about 90% of my normal expended energy (partially just because I’m really excited to be back in the advanced group of dancers). We only had seven people show up, 원중 Wonjung still isn’t back to class and Thursday always has lower attendance. Several people only pay 30,000 per month and only come on Monday, but no one only comes on Thursday.
Then I stayed up too late preparing a presentation on exploring Korea.
No comments:
Post a Comment