Hey there! I'm sorry once again for the random post -- I feel as though I'm going all over the place with this blog, but no one reads it anyways, so ha! Anyways, right when I was about to graduate from 6th grade to 7th (in Korea, middle school starts later), I was infected with Osteomyelitis. I remember walking with my aunt & my family to a restaurant to celebrate my graduation by eating potato stew! I was cautious, because it was snowing and the ground was very, very slippery. I had slipped once before & remembered that it wasn't something pleasant. Either way, we arrived to the restaurant safely, and we all sat down on the cozy wooded floor. Everyone ate, except for me. Prior to my graduation ceremony, I was ill with stomach flu, so I couldn't eat anything. I watched as everyone was happily talking & congratulating me. But nothing came into my ears. I was only thinking about the pain in my right leg.
Our family was supposed to walk with our aunt back to the train station & say goodbye, but I told my dad that I just couldn't walk that far. It was starting to hurt even just to walk -- I wouldn't make it to the metro! That's why my dad and I walked back home while my mom & my sister went with my aunt. I was complaining the whole journey back. "My leg hurts" "Dad, carry me", "I want to chop off my leg". That's how I felt, literally. I wanted to chop off my leg! You know why? It's because when you have Osteomyelitis, it feels like there's some liquidy infection that's lurking around in your bone, pulling & pounding at the same time. It's a weird sensation that I can't really describe, but it's worse than when your growth hormones start to kick in. You know that feeling at night you get when your legs start to hurt & your parents say that it means you're growing? It's worse than that.
By the time I came back, my ankle (the infected area) was purple and swollen & resembled a giant fist. That night, my mother put a bag of ice next to my ankle. It did feel better, but the moment the ice was away, the pain came skipping back! That's why we went to a nearby, small hospital, where a doctor asked me questions like: "where does it hurt?" and "Did you happen to fall before?" After more questions, he told my parents that I needed to go to a bigger hospital where I could get a proper blood test & X-Ray. We jumped into a taxi (well, except me, because I couldn't jump) and went to Baek Hospital, the biggest hospital in city.
I went to the emergency room, where I got so many different injections & shots -- they took my blood, they gave me allergic reaction shots, etc. -- they also took my urine sample & yadda yadda. I couldn't remember much, because I was lying on a bed, staring at the white ceilings. All I could hear was the doctors in green uniforms rushing around, scribbling on their clipboards, and other patients (who were in way worse situations) moaning & crying. There was in fact a woman who was sobbing and shrieking because she had been hit in the head with a pole (by her boyfriend, I think.)
The story's long after that. I had to check in at the hospital, where I spent almost two months. During that time, I had to get a MRI test, got antibiotics (the shots that hurt like HELL!), had a linger attached to different parts of my body (hand, arm, wherever there was a vein) that was switched every 3 days, and eventually had to get a surgery on my ankle. Three holes were drilled in to my bone & as the doctors said, there was a fountain of pus (the yellowy goo) that sprouted out of my bone. I had to get treated on my open wound every single day & it was not pleasant.
Another interesting the doctor told me was that if I had come later, I would've had to amputated my leg. The infection was bad enough when I arrived & was getting worse, but if I had come even later -- bye bye to my leg!
The bad thing about all this? Well, first, my parents were going through some pain as well -- it's not the best thing seeing your child like this. They had to go around taking care of me, sleeping on a tiny, hard space next to my white, comfy bed. They had to help me urinate whenever I had to go. Second, the surgery was not exactly cheap. Third, the antibiotics were hell. Almost literally. The pain left numerous red scars on my hand & felt very weird. My veins felt like they were going to explode because so much liquid was shooting through it forcefully. My hand felt like it was going to burst any second!
The best part about all this? I didn't have to go to school for a month and I could do almost anything I wanted. I ate food -- if I felt like eating, anyways -- that I wanted, relatives came to visit me with goodies & kind words, and I could watch TV all day. In addition to that, I got to meet some awesome people. During one of my daily visits to the 7th floor to get my wound cleansed, I met so many different people. There were people who had the same exact infection was mine, those whose entire body was red and covered in yellow-white flakes due to a fire, those who had even bigger open wounds than mine, and so on. There was one particular man that I met...he was an elderly man. He was balding and had very few strands of grey and white hair on his head. His eyes were soft and always curved so it looked like he was happy, even if his arm had a wide window! His face was all wrinkles -- mini smiles -- and he liked to tease me about how wimpy I was. Every time he met me, we would bicker and giggle. I even went to visit him in his room, which he shared with many other elderly people (It turns out, he told the others about me & they began to tease me too!) got sad when he wasn't there sometimes. I never learned his name, but it didn't matter. It was an experience that I will never, ever, forget (even though I know that sounds very cliche) and wish I can replay.