Throwback: The Lost Weekend

A psychologist I saw during my exceptionally troubled adolescence once told me that I would be a "late bloomer, perhaps in my thirties," and as luck would have it, she was correct in her estimation.

But neither of us could have seen the consequences of her prediction. As it came to pass, seven years ago, I left my flowering place with both a defective body and a broken heart.

But I did not leave of my own accord. Nor did I leave as a full-bloomed flower. No, I left a weak, broken, and much trampled on briar rose, full of prickles among the sweet. I left because there were no options left for me. I left because my mortality caught up with me.

Leaving my horrible job and even more horrible housing during my last few moths in Korea was at first, quite exhilarating. When I moved back to Seoul from the sordid rural community I had been living in, a great burden was lifted from me. No more military jets coursing directly over my head at all hours of the day and night. No more hookers and johns harassing me as I walked by the anmas ("happy ending" massage parlors) and dog-meat soup restaurants to get to my squalid little apartment building. No more random and whimsical demands from ill-placed administrators. No more apartments falling down around my ears. No more.

Who wouldn't be happy?

And, for a glorious few weeks, I was - madly, ridiculously, inanely - ecstatic about my new living situation and a new job where my years of experience were actually respected. A bit of nausea and light vomiting on the first day of the job? No problem, it is probably nerves, or something I ate. Never mind that I was not prone to stomach problems from nerves. Well, no matter.

I started going to the gym regularly, and enjoyed it for the first time in my life. For once, I was seeing RESULTS from my hard work. I watched the needle on the scale drop rapidly week by week as I continued my regime.

Never mind that I was only eating one meal a day, which sometimes wouldn't stay down. Never mind that every meal ended with electrical current zapping through my intestines and stomach, doubling me over with the pain. Never mind that I had to suddenly excuse myself during class on several occasions to void the food that refused to stay down. Never mind that I was occasionally prone on the floor of the bathroom, wondering why I couldn't keep enough food in my stomach to give me "just enough strength to teach tomorrow." I would just push through it, as I always did.

But, inevitably, one day I couldn't.

I remember very little of my last few weeks in South Korea.

I remember going to a well-intentioned, but as it turned out useless doctor, who did his best to diagnose the mysterious illness that prevented me from eating. Fatty-liver? I was a bit overweight, but not anywhere near obese (or a drinker). Pills for that. Acid reflux? Upper endoscopy, without pain meds or sedation. Inconclusive, but pills for that. Continuous nausea? Pills for that - completely ineffective.

I remember the doctor asking me three times to take a pregnancy test, even though there was no possible reason to suspect pregnancy as a cause of my malaise and primarily in-the-morning sickness. I remember getting angry at the implications made by the doctor, because all Western women have loose morals, right?

I remember the doctor asking me if I had been through any stress recently. Well, yes, I had. I had moved from rural Korea back to Seoul. A sweet romance had been cut short by a sudden deployment back to America. Tears had coursed down my face, adding to the misery from my constant nausea and weakness. The doctor yelled at me for getting emotional, then hurriedly scrawled something on his pad. "I will give you something I give women whose husbands have cheated on them."

HUH? I must be imagining things, I thought. He hooked me to an IV, then moved me to a curtained alcove. I woke up four hours later.

I took the prescription and stood in line at the pharmacy. A batty old Korean woman suddenly burst in to the pharmacy and began yelling at me in Korean for a good ten minutes. I gazed at her through bleary eyes, not comprehending. She moved like she was going to grab me, but a young man blocked her. After a few nasty words said in my general direction, she left. The other Koreans in the pharmacy gave me a wide berth, as the pharmacist hurriedly passed me my pill packets.

In Korea, you never know what medication you are getting because they are dispensed in "doses" which are separated in perforated plastic bags for each time you are supposed to take them. If the pharmacist is feeling helpful, which is not very often, he or she might write "AM, NOON, PM" in permanent marker on each bag. But that is all the help you get.

I took my first dose of medication and waited. And waited. And fell asleep.


I remember waking up and sensing, in the far right corner of my bedroom, a presence in the air. It was not a physical presence or entity, but I could feel myself moving towards...something warm. Oddly enough, I could also hear Julie Andrews singing "Feed the Birds" as I moved towards the presence.

NO.

I stopped moving.

Oh well, I guess I am having a really interesting hallucination - no problem!

And I slept.

I woke up on the floor of the bathroom. Ah, so cool, I thought.

And I slept.

I woke up in my bed. I made a cup of tea and sat at my kitchen table.

On the table, there was a plane ticket, but I had no idea where it came from.

And I slept.

I called my family. Several times. I only remember actually calling one time, but my family now assures me it was several times. In the middle of the night.

And I slept.

My family, meanwhile, began making plans to get me out of Korea.

That Sunday, I visited a hellfire-and-brimstone Southern Baptist church in Seoul. I remember talking rapidly to the startled pastor, but not what I said. I think I asked for prayer.  I remember nothing after that - not how I got home, not what the pastor said - nothing.

I called a few members of my home church for help with navigating the Korean medical system, people whom I had come to love and who I thought might be willing to assist me, but no one responded to my phone calls.  The pastor of the church kindly recommended going to a different doctor at a good teaching hospital.

I came to my senses on Monday morning, with what seemed to be a wicked hangover. I made an appointment with the American doctor at the teaching hospital - I believe his name was Dr. Linton. He took one look at me, and asked me to hand over the pills I had been prescribed. He shook his head when he saw the excessive amount of pills and the dosages I had been taking. "You are extremely over-medicated." He hooked me up to an IV for replenishing my fluids, then sent a medical resident periodically observe me while I sweated out all the medication I had been on.

Later that night, curious, I read all the printing on the sides of my pills and researched them on the Internet. There were two extremely strong liver function pills, a few herbal remedies of various kinds, an anti-inflammatory, a full dose of Paxil...and a half dose of Xanax.

I returned to the hospital the next day for another IV infusion of fluids, as I still could not eat. I had not really eaten a full meal for almost two months, in fact. I underwent several more tests, but the diagnosis was still unconfirmed. I had severe GERD, complicated by a helicobacter pylori infection,  complicated by chronic gastritis. I was so weak at this point, I couldn't really comprehend what he was saying, "You might want to consider returning to America."

I returned to my apartment that evening. I looked around at my warm, but well-maintained Korean style apartment. It was the first apartment I had ever called my own. The November air had turned chilly outside, but the ondol heating beneath my floor warmed my feet as I settled in for the night. There is nothing so satisfying as ondol heating in the winter, I thought. Or Korean style porridge. Or a hot sweet potato from a street vendor to carry for warmth.

I didn't want to think about leaving the life I had finally learned to love. Not when I had struggled so long to find my place in this world. Not when I had tasted true happiness and contentment for the first time in my life. Not while I still had life in my body...but what kind of life? Clearly, I could not depend on my friends, my doctors, or my family so far away.

Up until this moment I had never NEEDED to depend on anyone.

But time was running out. It was time to do the inevitable - or die of stubbornness. The plane ticket winked at me on my kitchen table. I had a brief flashback to waiting in a lobby at a travel agency. Maybe, on a subconscious level, I had known that this was the end of my journey.

I called my family that night and told them I would be home for Thanksgiving. Permanently.

November 25, 2014: Gratitude

During my listening and speaking class today, we found that there was some time left over - a very rare occurrence in MY class. To fill the last five minutes of class, I started a group conversation about Thanksgiving traditions. I rather casually mentioned that Thanksgiving is a day when some families go around the table before or after the meal and name one thing in their life for which they are thankful; I also mentioned that many of the Christian families offer thanks to God for all His blessings on this special day, just like our traditional tale states that the Pilgrims did during that first harvest.

After I dismissed the class, one of my more thoughtful Middle Eastern students - a true old-soul-in-a-young-body gentleman - stayed after class to chat, as he often does. We often get into deep discussions about abstract ideas and meaning of life topics, so I was expecting something profound as usual - which it was, but not in the way I expected. He politely asked me to clarify what I had so off-handedly mentioned about giving thanks:

"Teacher, you said that Christians give thanks to God on Thanksgiving. Why only this time? We give thanks to God everyday."

I gently explained that, of course, we give thanks at other times. But then I started thinking. Do we? How much of this manifests itself in our prayer life? Do we give thanks at other times? 

We could learn a lot from our Muslim friends - to give thanks every day for each day of life we are given.

Through my conversations with my Muslim and Near East students, I have come to a greater understanding of the God of Abraham, and I see certain passages in the Old Testament in a new light as a result. Of course, the Christians are covered under the NEW Covenant, but we can also see traces of the Old Covenant among the peoples who still follow the ancient traditions of the near East. I have had some interesting discussions with my students, and I am still amazed and inspired by their absolute reverence for the Creator of All Things.

And their Gratitude.

November 14, 2014: The Reality of Winter

I played with the cats today at the local animal shelter. A sweet, but "cage-crazy" tabby called Azalea kept me company for at least 30 minutes. She kept up a cat monologue the whole time, and I felt extremely distressed for this animal, who has been there for 30 days and just wants a human companion. Actually, I think she would make an excellent companion for a senior citizen who lives alone.

Eventually, she calmed down, and even began to chase me around the room - picture, if you will, a chubby-cheeked brown tabby cat chasing an overweight middle-aged woman around a small room - and then plopped on my lap. When she finally settled down and seemed calmer, I put her back in her cage. She hissed, spat, and glared at me from the corner of her cage, making irritated cat noises the whole time. "BITCH!" she seemed to screech. And I felt oddly guilty.

But I also understood her. I am also feeling my cage right now - snarly, grumbly, and generally pissed off at this week. When I am working, I generally feel at peace (this week was the exception though), but then I come home to nothingness. Most of the time, the nothingness is a relief - I am an introvert, after all - but it can also be numbing, and even sad. This is why I prefer living near major cities, where there is always something to do. Here, there is a pretty good chance of getting snowed in - the nearest real city is 2 hours away.

The extreme cold and lack of sunlight isn't helping either. Truthfully, when I left California, It hadn't even occurred to me that I would have to deal with the physical reality of winter weather in a smallish university town. But I've made my home - such as it is - here and will have to learn to deal with it. I think the hardest thing will be spending Thanksgiving alone, but I will likely volunteer at some soup kitchen to keep my mind off things.
Sincerely,
The California Exile

June 22, 2014: Dallas Hospital Adventure, Student Edition

On Friday night, I volunteer, along with another teacher, to accompany a group of our international students into Dallas to go see an art exhibit and street festival. The bus ride is uneventful, aside from the second bus’s air conditioner mysteriously quitting. I am on the first bus, so I only hear about the other bus later. We arrive at the art museum and began queuing up to get tickets for the exhibit. Actually, because the new activity coordinator is a little inexperienced at “cat herding” international students, I step in, using my best teacher voice. In spite of our best efforts, some members of the group “escape” to buy dinner before we can give them their tickets, causing much confusion when they arrive later. We get the remaining students lined up (more or less) and begin counting heads. As I confirm the ticket purchase with the coordinator, she mentions that there is “kinda-sorta” an emergency call – a student has passed out from the heat but is now conscious and talking. I offer to go check him out, as I have the most updated first aid/CPR certification, and the coordinator needs to deal with the stragglers. The other teacher accompanies me. When I get to where the student is staying, he is sitting on the ground, outside the museum in the heat. One student is feeding him half of a Kit Kat bar, and the other student is holding a bottle of water; I caution the student with water to only let him sip it - it is not ice water, thankfully - but that turns out to be unnecessary. He seems a bit dazed and confused, but assents when I ask if I can touch him (as Red Cross protocol demands). His roommate says that the student had not eaten that day and had stayed up all night studying for a composition exam. I touch his forehead, and to my surprise, discover that he is cool and clammy. I instruct his friend to keep a cool, wet paper towel on the back of his neck to keep the intense summer heat at bay. He is able to say his name, date, and day of the week. He then starts trembling all over. By this time, a security guard is on the scene, and the security guard and I lift him gently and walk/carry him inside. As we lower him to a seat, he blacks out again, and his eyes roll back in his head. He starts trembling again, but his breathing is normal. The shaking – fairly mild at this time - continues, so I have a student hold his head gently in the correct position for clear breathing. In between seizures, his eyes remain at half-mast and stare in different directions. The security guard calls an ambulance. When the ambulance arrives, the student is really beginning to have a bigger seizure. I ask his friends if any of them are Level 5 or 6 – high enough English to translate if needed. His roommate and another friend volunteer to go with him as translators. I send his roommate with the ambulance, and his other friend goes with me in a taxi. The paramedics tell us to go to Baylor Hospital. What they don’t tell us is which Baylor Hospital to go to- there are three. The first taxi we hail refuses to take us – I got the impression he doesn’t like Arabs - but the second taxi knows exactly where to go. In the ER, the agent has some difficulty finding the young man, who has an unusually long “foreign” name. Eventually, the clerk locates him, and we go to his ER cubicle. He is in full seizure when we get to the hospital. In between the first two seizures, he is able to “appreciate” the cute nurses fussing over him, but can’t really speak or think clearly. The doctor expresses some serious concern over his condition, and the decision is made to move him to the ICU for “life support.” It takes three hours to get a bed, and he continues to have seizures throughout the night. During one seizure, the student becomes quite delirious, muttering “go away!” in Arabic and pulling at his IVs. He then starts crying, still not in his right mind. I cautiously lean over him to reassure the poor boy, placing one hand on his forehead, like a mother would if her boy were suffering. This is quite out of character for me, as I hate touching people I don’t know, but it seems to be the right thing to do at the moment. He suddenly grabs onto my other hand firmly …and promptly blacks out again. He has exceptionally long fingernails, so every time I try to pull my hand away, he digs into my hand with his nails. He doesn’t let go for 30 minutes, and my arm falls asleep. Finally, he relaxes into a deep slumber, and I am able to retrieve my hand. When he wakes up again, he is quite clear-headed. I re-introduce myself. “Do you know who I am?” He thinks hard, then smiles a bit, “Mom?” I explain that I am a teacher in his program. He is silent for a minute, then asks for “Miss Patria Teacher. I like her.” A few moments later, he says, in English, “I can’t control my body.” I tell him what has happened, but he doesn’t remember any of it. He goes back to sleep, but starts shivering again. The nurse brings a warm blanket, and this time, the shivering stops. Not a seizure. He turns on his side and begins to snore gently. His two friends are fairly calm during the episodes, and I am really proud of them for dealing with the situation as well as they did. They are both only 19. Actually, one of them really can’t deal with the medical procedures at all, but he always returns to the room once the medical staff leaves. The other one stays by his side, makes some phone calls (as do I), and finally connects with the patient's father through the Oman embassy. Two hours later, the orderly from ICU comes down to move him. “Como estas, Mr. Al******?” I gently explain that he isn’t a Spanish speaker. “Does he speak English?” “Yes. Well, as a matter of fact.” I guess he could pass for South American. Honestly, I am so used to dealing with people from other countries that the thought hasn’t occurred to me he might be mistaken for someone coming from a different country. He is a nice looking boy, I think a few minutes later, as I pray silently over him. I haven’t noticed before, but he has very chiseled features, with strong and regular bone structure visible under his tawny complexion; he also has a rather nicely shaped nose. A bit on the thin side, but he is still a teenager, so that may change. No wonder the nurses like him. I go up to the ICU with the patient to assist with answering the attendant’s questions. I chat with his friends quietly for about an hour as he settles in. We have one of those deep, serious conversations one tends to have at 3;00 am in a hospital room – Buddhism, Henry the 8th, and silly wars fought over camels, if I remember correctly. At 4;00 am, I leave the hospital, his two companions remaining as sentries in his room. I take a taxi back to the town I live in and have a delightful conversation with the driver from Ghana, who offers to go back for the boys later. I crawl into bed at 6am and do not wake up until 2pm.

July 10, 2014: Trying Times

As of July 31, I am homeless. As of August 1, I am jobless. God is laughing at me. My student reviews are "higher than average." All except for three rather unmotivated students are passing at a "higher than average" GPA and overall rate. My students actually show up to class regularly, which is an ongoing battle for almost everyone else. The Big Boss eviscerated my teaching and ranked me "fair" to "poor" in most categories. Granted, he saw me on a suckish day. I followed the previous teacher's lesson plans, as advised and actually required, even though I didn't feel terribly comfortable with the idea of using "stations" for teaching beginners - ESL teachers will know what I mean. He first said I didn't explain enough, then later said I over-explained. Whatever.  My students are still fasting, and also happen to be passing around a bad summer cold - which I now have - that has caused them to drop like flies. Their energy level is pretty low, and Tuesday was actually the worst day of class ever. Oh, and did I mention we still have no functional air conditioner in the classroom - in a warmer than usual Texas summer? We all STINK at the end of a class, especially one poor young man who has gotten severe gas and diarrhea from Ramadan fasting; I let him sit by the window and run to the bathroom as necessary. The A/C issue has been reported many times, but no one has come to take care of it. The Big Boss has offered to observe again, my other class this time. I will take him up on the offer, but only to prove I don't suck. Some of his criticism was just, but it couldn't be helped due to the trying situation. I DID have some issues that day - which reminded me of some of the ridiculous teaching methods expected at a certain for-profit learning center -  but they have resolved now that everyone is back and actually doing their homework. The irony? My students were very energetic today and had a blast. Not incidentally, they learned something. We almost got yelled at again for too much noise!

July 17, 2014: How to Convince Your Students You Are Crazy

So, a rather shy student student was frantically trying to get my attention during a rather chaotic "educational activity" (game). There were people scrambling around the room, and this student is rather soft spoken, so I didn't hear him at first. Finally, he whistled at me as I went by - like you whistle at an animal, not a cute girl, to be clear - and made the universal "come here" hand wave. Without thinking much about it, and in the spirit of the game, I walked over, and BARKED at him "Arf! Arf!"

He stopped, stunned...then apologized profusely!

The other students razzed him a bit, but he took it pretty well.

August 11, 2014: To Be a Comedian

When something tragic happens to a person, he or she can get angry, get sad, or find the humorous side later. Even soldiers in war-torn countries make light of their situations with what we call "gallows humor," as they do in the movie WALTZ WITH BASHIR. Comedians tend to be people prone to "laugh at it later." But all those "laters" do eventually add up to a whole lot of "nows," and then there IS no funny left, only oneself. Some of the funniest people in the world are also the saddest people. A comedian is often the slightly eccentric individual who finds the humor in the most tragically ridiculous life situations - death, innocence lost, insufficient parenting, and poverty can all seem humorous in a certain light. These are the characters that Mr. Williams played - a doctor who used humor to deal with the fact that most of his patients were dying, a sad little man who has lost his childhood and sense of wonder, an embittered professor dealing with the loss of his wife, a man trying desperately to win back the family he has lost. This is the true man that many never noticed - a man trying to cope with some kind of loss, inner demon, or tragedy in the only way he knew how - through humor. What happens to a human when there is no humorous side? What if there is nothing left to laugh about? What if you lose the ability to laugh at yourself? What if all people see is the Pagliacci mask that you portray to the world? What if no one ever sees that you are hurting? The genius of Williams is that he showed his pain through his laughter, at least, to those who were watching closely. It should be no surprise to his most intuitive observers that he was a deeply unhappy man. RIP, Robin Williams. La commedia è finita!