I’m not going to belabor this too much, but I got sick the day after returning from the States. Started out with just a feeling of lethargy which I attributed to jet lag. But driving home from work on Thursday I was overcome with the tell-tale chills and shivers that are the precursors of fever.

And fever it was. I was holding pretty steady at 103 through Sunday. Well, I would knock it down for a bit with ibuprofen (prescription strength) but a couple of hours later I would be cookin’ again. Needless to say I was getting much sleep, wasn’t eating, and apparently wasn’t getting better.

When the fever came back stronger than ever Monday morning I was sufficiently motivated to get off the couch and down to the local emergency room at Sookchunhwang Hospital (to which regular readers will know I became acquainted through a couple of previous incidents involving me, er, falling down). Fever is a symptom and since I couldn’t seem to defeat the symptom, I thought maybe some antibiotics to attack the root cause was the way to go.

I’ll give the ER staff credit, they took blood, x-rays, and urine but 3 hours later they had come up with no more clue than I had regarding my condition. So, they scheduled me an appointment with the Intenational Clinic at SCH later that morning. I asked for a shot of anti-biotics but the doc declined stating it might interfere with whatever tests they might perfrom at the clinic. So, I headed home W400,000 poorer and in no better condition.

After managing a couple of hours sleep, it was back to the hospital’s International clinic and my appointment with Dr. Yoo. After hearing my tale of woe and taking my temprature (still 103) he wanted to admit me for testing. I told him I live right up the hill, he could do his tests on an outpatient basis. He was pretty insistent that it would be much better for me to do this inpatient. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and finally reluctantly agreed to be admitted.

And then the nightmare began.

(to be continued)