hurt: a flashback, a language lesson, a doctor visit and a video

March 2006: Shortly before we found out I was pregnant with Liam, Matthew and I took a weekend trip to Seoul with some friends. Oh, how easy it was to just throw a few things in a bag and hop on a bus in those days. My friend Sara wanted to get her eyebrow pierced while we were in Itaewon and I decided to get mine done as well.

Sara and I, modeling our newly pierced eyebrows:


When we returned to Sokcho, all the Koreans we knew seemed very concerned about how much it must hurt. I tried to explain that it didn't hurt any more than getting one's ears pierced, but I don't think they were convinced. One student told me it looked, "very very very very very very sick." I was a bit offended at first, until I found out that in Korean, the word 아파 (a'pa) means both hurt and sick. She just chose the wrong translation...I think.

Which brings us to yesterday when I told various medical professionals 귀 아파요 (kwi a'payo, "[My] ear hurts"). The family practitioner I initially visited took a look at my ear and referred me to an E.N.T. (ear, nose, and throat specialist). Yes, my ear hurt, but that was just the beginning of the pain. My rather nasty middle ear infection is caused by my equally nasty sinus infection. The E.N.T., a Dr. Song, told me that ramming several long cotton swabs up each nostril is the most effective treatment. Apparently, it opens the clogged nasal passages and allows them to drain more freely. It also felt as if red-hot pokers had been rammed up my nostrils. My eyes watered. I couldn't see. I gasped. I whimpered. He left them in there and then wanted me to look at the x-ray type picture he'd taken of my face. Even though the pain faded to a dull ache, I couldn't see anything without my glasses, which I'd removed. After the little torture session was finished, his assistant helped me with a nasal rinse (cross between a neti pot and the rinsing spout that a dentist uses). He prescribed two days of medication and told me to come back, evidently for more of the same. It will apparently take 2-3 weeks for the infection to clear. (The good doctor's wife is a dentist, quite a sadistic pairing.)

And, finally, while I'm on the topic of "Hurt," I will leave you with this video. Although I loved the original Nine Inch Nails version as an angst-filled teenager, it never touched me quite as much as this cover by the late Johnny Cash. Now there was a man who could sing about pain.



Incidentally, the eyebrow ring only lasted three or four weeks. I liked the way it looked, but would forget about it every morning and hurt myself when I rubbed my eyes. Alas, I'm too low maintenance to be a hipster.

more babies, please!

Not for me...for South Korea.

One of my "followers" (using that term makes me feel like a cult leader) commented on how strange it is that the Korean government is monetarily rewarding people for having children. That's because South Korea has one of the lowest (2nd only to Hong Kong) birth rates in the world: 1.08% in 2006. There are several factors that contributed to this decrease.

Forty years ago, the average Korean woman married young and had an average of six children. The shift to urban life, with higher education for women and less need for a "family work force" has dropped that number to 1.17 children per woman.

As each generation tries to create a better life for their children, parents are overwhelmed by the rising cost of pre-school, hagwon (private after-school programs like the one where Matthew works), and university, not to mention all the stuff that modern kids supposedly need. And, let's face it, Koreans are competitively materialistic. The game of keeping up with the Kims puts the Joneses to shame. Most people can't afford to have more than one or two children.

Oh, and then there's the former government programs. That's right, starting in the 1960s, the government discouraged citizens from having too many children. One slogan was, "Give Birth Without Thought and Keep Living Like a Beggar." Subtle, no? The government encouraged and subsidized vasectomies and tubal ligations until as late as 2005. Now they're paying to reverse those same vasectomies. Oops!

I wrote earlier about the debit card I received to defray my prenatal care. Some provinces give money directly to people who have more children, especially in smaller cities and towns where the population is rapidly aging. Our province, Gangwon-do, pays for "kindergarten" (pre-school that children can start as early as two years) for third or subsequent children.

Only time will tell if these measures help. If not, the South Korean population will decrease 13% by 2050.

Further reading:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06082802.html
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/11/117_34319.html
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/south-korea/090112/where-children-are-too-expensive
http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/2005/08/yup_ten_million_reverse_vasect_1.html

a picture is worth...?

W10,000 to the first person to explain this to me.
(Location: the waiting room outside the nursery at JoongAng birthing hospital)

Lowan, I mean Rowan

Rowan with his hospital cart tag:


More recently:


Step 1: Give birth.
Step 2: Obtain hospital birth certificate.
Step 3: Return to hospital to request that father and baby's names be added to birth certificate. (First copies only identified baby as 2nd child of Catherine.)
Step 4: Have employer translate certificate.
Step 5: Ask employer to change name translation (로웬) from Lowan to Rowan.
Step 6: Take 10-day-old baby, assorted official documents, copies, pictures, and money to U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
Step 7: Wait one week.
Step 8: Receive baby's Consular report of birth and passport via courier. Pay courier W10,000.
Step 9: Take baby, passport, etc. to local immigration office. (This is the next step that we need to complete. We need to apply for a visa for Rowan before he is 30 days old.)

Magical Mystery Card

My magical card, which was issued to "Cather," along with a somewhat explanatory note written by my doctor.

Sometimes, living in Korea is like a puzzle. I receive one piece after another, until I'm finally able to understand something.

At my 36 week appointment, my doctor gave me a "prescription." It was a form that he had signed, which he told me I should take to the bank. He explained that the bank would give me a card I could use to pay for prenatal appointments. The total value of the card is W200,000 and W40,000 can be used towards each appointment. He wrote down a few things in Korean and told me to ask a Korean friend about it.

I asked one of Matthew's co-workers, the same woman who graciously translated my birth plan. She hadn't heard of the program, but translated the form for me, then did an internet search and got back to me with what she'd found. Her understanding was that it was only good for prenatal care. As I'd assumed, it's another government-funded program to help raise the very low birth rate. Also, she told me that it would take a week after I turned in my form for the card to be issued.

I took the form to NongHyup bank where we have our accounts. The teller who always helps me placed a phone call, since no one there seemed to know anything about it. She told me I needed to go to Kookmin Bank (KB) downtown. The KB teller seemed familiar with the program and told me I needed to open an account there to have a card issued. After filling out multiple forms, she said my card would arrive in one week. Later that afternoon, she called to tell me that she forgot to have me sign a form and needed me to come back in. I took care of that two days later. My card arrived the very next day via courier.

In the meantime, I visited my pregnant Korean friend. She already had her card, even though her due date was two weeks after mine. This irritated me, because we have the same doctor AND he had given me the form at the same appointment when he'd run several (relatively) expensive, and in my opinion unnecessary, tests. I figured that he'd forgotten to give it to me when he was supposed to and cost me an extra W40,000. My friend did say that the card could be used for 15 days after giving birth. She planned to swipe her card each day at the hospital until it was used up.

I was able to use W20,000 for my 38 week appointment the week before Christmas, then had Matthew swipe the card the two days I was in the hospital, which took W80,000 off my bill (bringing the total bill to about $200). I also used it for my one-week postpartum appointment, but that was less than W3,000. It was at that last appointment that I noticed a poster on the wall. I recognized my lovely pink card and saw the date at the top: December 15, 2008. It's a brand new program, which explains why the doctor didn't give it to me earlier.

Bring on the national health care!

One of the things that South Korea does well is national health care -- at least in my experience. Matthew pays 2.2% of his paycheck, his employer matches that, and all three of us have coverage.

Here is my standard OB/GYN visit:
I walk in (no appointment necessary) and hand my little pregnancy booklet to a nurse at the front counter. She gives me a little strip on which to urinate (testing for excess protein in my urine). After I get back from the restroom, I check my own blood pressure on the automatic machine, then weigh myself. The nurse records both.
I take a seat. After about 10 minutes (20 on a busy day), the ultrasound technician calls me in to her room. She checks out the baby's vitals and measurements. About half the time she prints out a picture for me.
I return to the waiting area. After another 5-10 minutes, I'm called into the doctor's office. We discuss any test results, symptoms, etc.
Finally, I return to the front counter to pay. My usual bill is W20,000, which used to be about $20 before the exchange rate went to hell. Currently, it's closer to $14. My most expensive visits, with various blood and urine tests, have been W60,000.

That's impressive, but the truly impressive part is yet to come.

Liam is sick. He has a bad cough and now a slight ear infection. There's a pediatrician's office in the same building as my OB/GYN. We've now taken him in three times, as the doctor wants to check his recovery frequently.

Here's Liam's visit:
Parent gives child's insurance booklet to counter nurse. Another nurse is simultaneously checking his temperature via an instant ear thermometer while he plays on the slide or rocking horse in the waiting area. Within 5 minutes, parent and child are ushered into the doctor's office. While Liam screams and (at least when accompanied by me) pulls parent's hair, the doctor and nurse work together to listen to his lungs and heart, check his throat and ears. The doctor then gives directions to the parent (or the other parent if both are there and Liam is still screaming in first parent's ear). The bill and prescription are all on the same paper. Today we were in and out in about 10 minutes total.

Total cost per visit: W1,800 to 2,800 per visit. Yup, that's about $2.00.

We take the prescription to the pharmacy across the street from our apartment building. (There is an on-site pharmacy, but we like our local pharmacist and prefer to give her our business.) She gives us the medicine in small bottles (just the right amount for the two or three days until the next doctor's visit) labeled with the amounts and times per day to be administered. She also throws in free vitamin C tablets.

Total cost for 2-3 days worth of medicine: about W3,000. That's the same price I paid for a little toy train at the discount shop down the street after Liam's second doctor visit.

I will point out that something like 92% of medical facilities in South Korea are privately owned. It's a very different system than many countries with universal health care. But it certainly seems to work, at least from my vantage point.