ER Visit

Well, I had my first visit to a Korean emergency room today. I was there for about 8 hours, missed work and found out I have kidney stones. This morning I woke up in excruciating pain and it was on the lower right side so my immediate thought was appendicitis. However, the pain was radiating to the back and it actually hurt worse than my abdomen. Mr. Kim met me at my apartment at 9 and we went the the Seoul Medical Clinic and the doctor (who spoke English very well) told me it could be my appendix so I should go to the emergency room as quickly as possible. By then the pain had subsided some, I could actually walk without being hunched over and I thought, "ok, I'm fine." After an X-Ray I was hooked up to an IV, had an EKG and then I was taken up to CT. Turns out it wasn't my appendix, which was a relief because I really didn't want to have surgery. However, the kidney stones are on the move and that is why I was in such horrible pain. Later, after the CT I got pain medication and I am feeling about 500% better. I'm not out of the woods yet of course and tomorrow at 10 I have another X-Ray, this one involves dye, sort of like the CT, but they want to see how many and how big these stones are. I really hope I don't have to miss school tomorrow (I'll miss at least 10-12) because I only get 2 sick days and then my severance pay is deducted. Even in medical emergencies, thats the downfall of only 4 teachers. Good news though, I didn't have insurance this morning when I checked in so I was going to have to pay close to $1000 for everything today (the CT is $500), but Mr. Kim somehow finagled the people in to accepting my insurance after check in (he must have talked to a million people today) so now my total cost is only around $200. My test tomorrow will be about $35 and medications were only $13. Not too bad.