Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
And as Christmas comes to a close for me, I try to concentrate on the good things and all I have to be thankful for. I have met so many amazing people over the last 4 months and have had some wonderful experiences. Every day has not been a dream but I am alive and healthy, something I am especially thankful for considering my most recent health adventure. I have great friends to spend my time with, and an amazing family and friends back home to miss. Not to mention my glorious Savior, the reason for the holiday. I am abundantly blessed. It also brings to mind all the wonderful Christmas memories I have with my family, be it sitting in front of the fireplace or praying we can find just one open McDonald's for some Christmas breakfast, I can truly say I have a blessed life and the most amazing people in my life.
This year there was no Christmas tree, very little Christmas music, though that meant I didn't have a chance to get sick of it, like I usually am 2 days after Thanksgiving, and certainly none of the regular traditions, I still had a nice weekend celebrating the day.
After a week of easy Christmas lessons I headed to Yeongyang for a potluck Christmas on Saturday complete with ping-pong, a game of HORSE (basketball), secret Santa gifts, an abundance of delicious (non-Korean :] ) food, and a fabulous finish at my first noraebang (karaoke). I got there Friday night so I wouldn't have to worry about traveling on Saturday and had a nice evening with David, Vince, Marlene, and Lucy, who graciously offered her apartment for festivities and sleeping for 13. :] It's a good thing she has a big apartment. Saturday morning we woke up to a bit of snow, though it didn't stay for long it was a nice touch. After cooking the rest of the food for the afternoon, we headed out to play a bit of ping-pong until everyone else arrived. Which we followed up with a game of HORSE. In the cold. On top of a mountain. :o Once we were all sufficiently frozen we headed back to Lucy's and started the final preparations for dinner and waited for everyone to arrive. Cue mingling, drinking games, music, and general holiday festivities. Once everyone got there we had a delicious meal including mashed and roasted potatoes, chicken, all kinds of vegetables, and all other sorts of goodies. :D Then Dom and Dave treated us to a bit of live acoustic Christmas music and then we headed circled 'round for secret Santa. I got Andong soju, they're famous for it, in two beautiful ceramic figurines. All of the gifts were really nice and it was a lot of fun to see what everyone got. There were mittens, chocolate, wine and soju, bear coin banks and more.
To end the night we headed to a noraebang down the road from Lucy's. Korea really loves karaoke. So much so that they have establishments entirely dedicated to it. Like karaoke bars, but more. In a noraebang there are usually 5-10 rooms, of varying sizes, for different sized groups. You go with your group and you get a room and there are couches, and screens and microphones and they bring you food or drinks, you can order stuff, nothing serious, but snack type things, and then you sing your heart out. So we figured what better way to end Christmas Eve than to do just that. And sing we did. For 2 hours, until our throats were raw and the bottles were empty. We commemorated Christmas with Feliz Navidad at midnight and then headed back to home base and crashed for the night.
Sunday morning brought hangovers for many and gathering of belongings for our treks back to our homes. We said our goodbyes and ended a great weekend with friends. It was nice to be able to share Christmas with such great people and make all the wonderful memories. I know I'll never have another Christmas like it.
And yet, although I had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with friends, nothing can compare to Christmas breakfast, all the kids in one house, and family gathered round.
I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams...
Merry Christmas everyone. Miss and love you all. ♥
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Game of Operation
So much has happened since I last posted. It was almost a month ago but it seems much longer than that. So, I'll just dive right in. Oh and fair warning, this will be a long and personal post, aka, not the most interesting read. You've been warned. :]
So Wednesday, November 16, my coteacher, Oeja, insisted on taking me to the doctor since I was out Monday and Tuesday sick. It was a pretty standard appointment. What are your symptoms, where does it hurt, the usual. Then he has me lay down on the bed to do the part where they push around on your stomach just to make sure everything's okay. Well, I had found a lump about a month earlier in my lower abdomen, and told Oeja that I needed to see a doctor when it wasn't getting any smaller. That was the beginning of November. But, between her busy schedule and everything going on at school, the third graders huge, life changing test, and the school festival, we hadn't gotten around to it yet. So, back to my appointment. The doctor starts pushing around on my stomach and finds the lump, it was kind of hard to miss. So he tells me I need to have an xray, and they send me back to the xray room. After, we go back in to talk to the doc and he tells me he can't tell anything from the xray so I need to go to the hospital and have a CT scan or MRI done asap. But, Oeja had night classes on Wednesday, so she scheduled the appointment for Friday.
On Friday, we left school after lunch and headed to Pohang for the appointment. I find out they're going to do a CT scan with contrast so they give me and IV and I have my first CT scan. They send the results to the doc, she tells me I have a cyst on my right ovary, and they send me upstairs to the Gynecology and Obstetrics doc. He tells they need to operate to remove it, I lose it a little bit, and that he wants to do the operation tomorrow, Saturday, morning at 9 am so they need to admit me to the hospital tonight so they can get everything ready and do pre-op in the morning. Holy wow. At this point I am reeling. So we begin the admittance process and all the necessary test before surgery. I texted Susan right after I found out what it was as she had asked me to let her know, and also because I needed to tell someone. She called my mom and dad in the states and left a message since it was 2am there. Unfortunately, since they wanted to admit me that night, I didn't even get a chance to go home and pack a bag or get anything. Susan came Friday night and brought me a bag of stuff and took my key so she could take care of Switch for me. She also stayed Friday, all of Saturday, Saturday night, and half of Sunday. I really don't know if I would have been able to do it without her. God blessed me so much when he placed her in Yeongdeok.
So Saturday morning rolled around and after the doctor finished his rounds, they came and got me for surgery. The anesthesia must have worked because I don't remember much of Saturday after about 9. The operation went perfect, they removed the cyst, and there was no damage to the ovary. I also found out later when the results came back from the biopsy that it was completely benign and everything is fine. But it's good we caught it when we did because apparently cysts can burst. :/ After the surgery I had to stay in the hospital for 6 days for recovery which presented obnoxious roommates and their family, daily phone calls from my mom, frustration at the absence of internet in the hospital, seriously, what kind of hospital doesn't have internet, horrrrrible hospital food, apparently that's universal, a lonely Thanksgiving, and an all around crap week. Oeja came and drove me home on Friday, and I spent the weekend relearning how to walk upright without and IV attached to me. Switch was very glad to have me home, and I fully indulged in the attention. I love my cat. :]
The next Monday I went back to school and things have pretty much been back to normal since then. My high school students made me a fantastic paper with their wishes for me to "no sick," the Taekwondo kids all signed a card that Susan brought me with their sentiments to get better, and I have been making steady progress towards being 100% again as soon as possible. I had a checkup the Friday after I got out of the hospital to make sure everything was okay and was deemed "normal" by the doc because "normal people have 2 ovaries and 1 uterus, so, you're normal." Good to know doc, thanks. I am not waiting the recommended six weeks before exercising but am only going as far as my body will let me. I don't need to be seeing any more doctors.
I will however, be seeing the beautiful Philippines in January. I started planning my vacation and will be spending 16 glorious days in the sun and the ocean, soaking up every bit of warmth and relaxation I can manage. I am going with a friend from orientation, Lucy, and we are going to have more fun than should be allowed. But, I'll make a separate post about how very very excited I am about that and other more fun and interesting things later. ♥
So Wednesday, November 16, my coteacher, Oeja, insisted on taking me to the doctor since I was out Monday and Tuesday sick. It was a pretty standard appointment. What are your symptoms, where does it hurt, the usual. Then he has me lay down on the bed to do the part where they push around on your stomach just to make sure everything's okay. Well, I had found a lump about a month earlier in my lower abdomen, and told Oeja that I needed to see a doctor when it wasn't getting any smaller. That was the beginning of November. But, between her busy schedule and everything going on at school, the third graders huge, life changing test, and the school festival, we hadn't gotten around to it yet. So, back to my appointment. The doctor starts pushing around on my stomach and finds the lump, it was kind of hard to miss. So he tells me I need to have an xray, and they send me back to the xray room. After, we go back in to talk to the doc and he tells me he can't tell anything from the xray so I need to go to the hospital and have a CT scan or MRI done asap. But, Oeja had night classes on Wednesday, so she scheduled the appointment for Friday.
On Friday, we left school after lunch and headed to Pohang for the appointment. I find out they're going to do a CT scan with contrast so they give me and IV and I have my first CT scan. They send the results to the doc, she tells me I have a cyst on my right ovary, and they send me upstairs to the Gynecology and Obstetrics doc. He tells they need to operate to remove it, I lose it a little bit, and that he wants to do the operation tomorrow, Saturday, morning at 9 am so they need to admit me to the hospital tonight so they can get everything ready and do pre-op in the morning. Holy wow. At this point I am reeling. So we begin the admittance process and all the necessary test before surgery. I texted Susan right after I found out what it was as she had asked me to let her know, and also because I needed to tell someone. She called my mom and dad in the states and left a message since it was 2am there. Unfortunately, since they wanted to admit me that night, I didn't even get a chance to go home and pack a bag or get anything. Susan came Friday night and brought me a bag of stuff and took my key so she could take care of Switch for me. She also stayed Friday, all of Saturday, Saturday night, and half of Sunday. I really don't know if I would have been able to do it without her. God blessed me so much when he placed her in Yeongdeok.
So Saturday morning rolled around and after the doctor finished his rounds, they came and got me for surgery. The anesthesia must have worked because I don't remember much of Saturday after about 9. The operation went perfect, they removed the cyst, and there was no damage to the ovary. I also found out later when the results came back from the biopsy that it was completely benign and everything is fine. But it's good we caught it when we did because apparently cysts can burst. :/ After the surgery I had to stay in the hospital for 6 days for recovery which presented obnoxious roommates and their family, daily phone calls from my mom, frustration at the absence of internet in the hospital, seriously, what kind of hospital doesn't have internet, horrrrrible hospital food, apparently that's universal, a lonely Thanksgiving, and an all around crap week. Oeja came and drove me home on Friday, and I spent the weekend relearning how to walk upright without and IV attached to me. Switch was very glad to have me home, and I fully indulged in the attention. I love my cat. :]
The next Monday I went back to school and things have pretty much been back to normal since then. My high school students made me a fantastic paper with their wishes for me to "no sick," the Taekwondo kids all signed a card that Susan brought me with their sentiments to get better, and I have been making steady progress towards being 100% again as soon as possible. I had a checkup the Friday after I got out of the hospital to make sure everything was okay and was deemed "normal" by the doc because "normal people have 2 ovaries and 1 uterus, so, you're normal." Good to know doc, thanks. I am not waiting the recommended six weeks before exercising but am only going as far as my body will let me. I don't need to be seeing any more doctors.
I will however, be seeing the beautiful Philippines in January. I started planning my vacation and will be spending 16 glorious days in the sun and the ocean, soaking up every bit of warmth and relaxation I can manage. I am going with a friend from orientation, Lucy, and we are going to have more fun than should be allowed. But, I'll make a separate post about how very very excited I am about that and other more fun and interesting things later. ♥
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