The foreigner special olympics ...

Do me a favor as you read this blog. Cue up the song "Chariots of Fire."

So there we were. It was Korean Thanksgiving and Marissa and I each had three nice weekdays off.

And as a bonus, there was a Monet exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art. I was two weeks into my knee injury, but I was going to be damned if we missed this exhibit, especially since it was scheduled to close the day after Korean Thanksgiving.

We made it to the subway station and as we walked out, I saw him.

Another foreigner on crutches. He had an accent and was British/Scottish/Mexican/Irish/South African/Australian or Kiwi. I can't tell them apart.

We were heading out the same exit. It was on. Neither of us said anything, but made eye contact and understood. One of us would be the first one up the stairs.



Korea's not bad when it comes to handicapped access, but it's not great either. Most of the subway stations have elevators or escalators, but they take out a different exit and it's an easy way to get lost.

My competitor in this foreigners special olympics was on two crutches as I had been the week prior. That gave me a clear speed advantage. He also was sporting a left knee injury but fractured the bone versus my partially torn tendon. That's about a wash in my opinion.

However, I had the speed advantage of one crutch and a brace versus his two crutches and splint.

And away they go ...

I started the race pacing myself. It was a big set of stairs and I didn't want to tire myself out. About halfway though, I realized I had this guy. He was moving slow and too cautiously. Then I was off. I easily outpaced him in the second half.

Reaching the finish line.

Winning that race up the stairs my seem like a small, petty victory, but it meant the world to me. After two weeks of having old people walk faster than me, I was finally faster than someone.

Let's go out ...

It was Marissa's third Saturday in Korea and it was time to go out.

So we went to the Hospital.

Though I fell the day before, I waited for a day until I couldn't walk anymore. Finally it was time to go to the hospital.

Now there's plenty of hospitals here in Korea that have English speaking International Clinics, but I didn't feel like taking a cab.

So we get in and I'm able to point to my knee and say, "It hurts here," in Korean.

Now the fun begins.

The Korean hospital wasn't as clean as I would like, but it was much better than Antelope Valley Hospital, where I stayed for a few days in 2005 for pneumonia.

The emergency room there was like a triage unit, a large room about the size of a first story home in America. Approximately 20 beds were there in this room where people lay next to each other, no matter how severe their ailments were.

Next to me was a man who had his arm broken in what appeared to be an accident with some friends, who also were there with various broken appendages.

On the other side of me, the most priceless entertainment a man in pain could ask for: A dramatic Korean woman.

Marissa and I do not speak Korean. But we can still smell bullshit. This woman kept turning in her bed, moaning, waving her arms slowly in the air and over her forehead and swooning for the most hilarious drama I can recall.

I do know enough Korean to know what her doctor said to her when he walked over and said, "You just need to go home and rest."

In Korea, there is no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality. Everyone is out in the open and everyone can see and hear what the doctor is doing to you and telling you.

That's when things got interesting and fun.

The fellas to my right were sending one of their more able bodied friends on a beer run. That's right. Hospital be damned, the dude was getting beer. Also, one of my favorite visuals from the Korean hospital, were people standing outside the entrance in the patient gowns, smoking cigarettes. Some even had IVs with them but they wanted to step outside and enjoy a nice smoke break.

That's commitment. One has to tip their hat to the Korean men smoking outside.

I managed to get patched up with a referral for an orthopedic doctor the following Monday.

All and all, it was a decent experience. I was in an out within 5 hours, which is just the waiting time for many U.S. hospitals. They had doctors on staff who spoke English and they correctly diagnosed me.

The only bad part was they put me in a whole leg splint that went from my foot to thigh and was held in place by bandages.

Fortunately the first orthopedic doctor I saw put me in a smaller splint which only went from the top of my knee to the middle of my calf.

Next up on LoughriedoesKorea.blogspot.com, the foreigners special Olympics ....