Living In Korea

I'd like to share my experience with acute appendicitis.  In the summer of 2024, I had a lot on my plate. Back in 2022, I invested in a piece of an office building, and by this summer, construction was complete. I had to make the final payment and find tenants for the space.At work, things were also busy. My colleague went on maternity leave, so I had to take on additional responsibilities. On top of that, my son was preparing for college, which involved meeting with several fortune-tellers to help guide his decisions. One weekend, my husband invited his high school friend and his wife to visit us. They drove five hours to spend time with us, so we took them to see some of Seoul’s major attractions. While we were visiting the National Museum, I started feeling a stomach ache. The next day, I went to the hospital and discovered that my appendix had burst! It was a Sunday, and luckily, there's a hospital near my house that is open even on weekends. So, I decided to visit. Unfortunately, the waiting room was packed with people dealing with COVID-19, the flu, and whooping cough, which has been surprisingly preval‎ent this summer. I ended up waiting for about an hour.When I finally saw the doctor, he told me that I needed to go to a larger hospital for a CT scan. He suspected I might have appendicitis or diverticulitis, and he advised me to go to the ER if the pain became unbearable. I never imagined I could have appendicitis, so I went home and rested for the day. The next day, I went to another hospital and got the CT scan. They confirmed it was appendicitis, and the abscess was about 4 cm. I was told to go to the ER immediately. These days, doctors are on strike due to issues surrounding the increase in medical student quotas, so the ER was incredibly crowded. After waiting for another hour, I finally got a bed. However, I couldn’t undergo surgery right away because of the abscess, so I had to receive antibiotic injections for 10 days instead. It was far from a vacation in the hospital—it felt more like being behind bars. All I could think about was getting out.For days, I wasn't allowed to drink even a sip of water, and I couldn't eat anything for four days. Sleep was nearly impossible because they had inserted a plastic drainage tube into my stomach, just under the skin near the incision, to help drain any accumulating fluids. The discomfort and constant monitoring made rest difficult, and all I could do was count the days until I could finally go home. Now that I'm finally out of the hospital, I still have to face surgery in two months. Can you believe it? Earlier this year, in February, I even got bitten by a dog. What a year it's been. I just hope I can make it through the rest of this year without any more surprises. By the way, I paid 95,000 won for the CT scan and 1,400,000 won for 10 days in the hospital. Thankfully, I have insurance, so I got almost all of it back.  Korean medical services are known for their excellence, but with the ongoing doctors' strike, that reputation is taking a hit. Many major hospitals are short on doctors, so patients like me have to go to secondary hospitals instead.