The One With Aldacron

Today, my wife and I celebrate eight years of marriage. My sister-in-law and her husband celebrated their anniversary yesterday. Wednesday night, we all went to dinner at a rather expensive, popular hotel buffet restaurant. I used to go there rather frequently when my wife and I lived in the area, but haven’t been in over four years. Although the price hasn’t changed in that time, both the number of dishes available and the quality of the food have suffered. I’m sure that’s the reason behind the number of empty tables I saw. Not so long ago, on any given night of the week there were people waiting outside. It’s not bad now, but it’s certainly no longer the best in Seoul.

After desert, while we were chatting over coffee, I had a sudden onset of minor pain in the lower right side of my back. I didn’t think much of it. Three hours later, back at my house, the severity of the pain sharply increased. When I awoke early the next morning, the pain was excruciating when I moved and even worse when I tried to walk. I canceled my English lessons and tried to sleep some more before heading out to a doctor.

When I was an Army medic, I had quite a bit of experience examining and diagnosing patients during sick call. The PA in charge of the aid station in my unit believed in hands-on experience for his medics. He taught us how to do exams, then cut us loose to do them on our own. We would examine the patients and present our findings to the PA. If he felt we missed anything, he would send us back in to complete the exam. On rare occasions when there was something more serious to consider, he would see the patient himself. Most of the time, he would ask for our diagnosis, tell us whether he concurred and, in either case, ask us how it should be treated. It was a tremendous learning experience. Unfortunately, it had the effect of turning me into a terrible patient.

I didn’t want to go to the doctor at all because I was certain he would give me some muscle relaxers and send me home. My wife was persistent, though, and since I missed a day of work for the problem I eventually came around. The doctor I visited opened his practice not very long ago. My wife was his real estate agent. There were no other patients when I entered the clinic, so I was sent directly back to the doctor. He listened to me describe the problem, asked a couple of questions, and then told me I either have a muscle spasm or a herniated disk. He gave me a shot, prescribed five days worth of medicine, and told me that if the pain is still severe after I’ve taken all of the medicine to come back and he will check for a herniated disk.

My symptoms aren’t really consistent with typical cases of herniated disks, so I’m more inclined to believe it’s a muscle problem. At any rate, the entire doctor’s visit, including the medication from a pharmacy across the street, cost me about USD $25. The pain has slacked off quite a bit, but is only completely relieved if I am laying down or reclining with my feet propped up. If I sit upright for more than a few minutes, the pain increases a bit. As such, I’ve spent the majority of the past two days reclining on my sofa, watching season 7 of West Wing (I conveniently bought the DVD Wednesday afternoon to complete my West Wing collection). I’ve done very little at the computer, which really sucks since I have a lot to do, but even as I’ve been typing this the pain has ratcheted up a bit. This is one of those times where I wish I had a laptop.

What really sucks, though, is that I had intended to go back to Dobong mountain today. My sister-in-law’s husband and I have plans to go hiking once per week. We’ve gone all out since last week’s hike and bought some new gear — hiking shoes, backpacks, and some useful accessories. Unfortunately, it looks like I won’t be able to hit the trail again for close to two weeks.

I’m going to take it easy for the remainder of this evening, but tomorrow, pain or no pain, I’ve got things to do. I’ll be out of the house for about five hours (two on the subway and three in a classroom, with a bit of walking in between). After that I’ve got some programming to get done. Hopefully all of the rest I’ve had over the past two days coupled with the meds will allow me to do all of that without much pain.