dimsum is bad

Yesterday was a pretty typical day for me. I walked around downtown for most of the day since the weather was actually nice for once. Overall things were going well...I wish I could say the same for the rest of the day. Around dinner time I was starving so I walked down to the E-Mart at Yongsan Station to get some take-out food to eat. They had these little cute packages of dimsum for pretty cheap, so I bought one and ate it in their little food court area. After that I walked down to the Han River cause I wanted to see the shoreline and check out the flood damage. That's when everything started to go very very wrong.

The first thing I noticed was that my neck and head started itching really really bad and then some hive-like bumps appeared along and below my chin. Soon after that I started sweating profusely, which was odd since it was actually kinda cool out last night. Finally it got to the point where I was so dizzy and my stomach hurt so bad that I could barely walk. Unfortunately for me there wasn't an easy way to get back to a populated area of Seoul from the riverside since there are only a few access tunnels every mile or so...so I had to walk quite a ways in that condition before I found some stairs that took me back to a nearby neighborhood. At this point I could no longer walk so I just laid down on the sidewalk for a few minutes, but I figured that it wouldn't do me any good if my condition got worse. I got back up again and stumbled to a nearby restaurant and asked them where the nearest hospital was. Lucky for me there was one right across the street. I walked into their emergency room and immediately collapsed on a bed.

The doctors there were really nice, but they couldn't speak that much English at all. Still, I do know some Korean so I was able to understand a few things that they said. I told them that I thought I must have eaten something bad and that my stomach really hurt. At that point my breathing was really erratic and I had that pins & needles feeling in my arms and hands. I guess they figured I had had an allergic reaction to whatever it was that I had eaten, so they gave me an epinephrine shot and a steroid shot and then they hooked me up to an IV drip. I don't really remember much of what went on during the next hour or so, all I know was that I was in so much pain that I was constantly rolling from one side of the bed to the other trying to make it go away. Finally when the pain lessened I was able to give them my boss's phone number and told them to call her. They drew some blood from me and then I think I fell asleep after that.

By the time Ms. Cha showed up I was feeling normal again, but the doctor told us that they wanted to keep me overnight to observe my condition. My boss was even kind enough to stay in the room with me overnight to keep an eye on me. A nurse came in at intervals throughout the night to check my vitals and then the next morning they moved me to another ward (I guess for people with less serious conditions). At about 11am this morning the doctor came in to check on me and said I was well enough to go home. They prescribed me some steroids and other medications that I have to take for the next four days, and then I'm supposed to go back for a checkup on Tuesday afternoon. My boss told me that they had diagnosed me as having gone into what is termed anaphylactic shock, which is when your body has a severe allergic reaction to one of many possible outside stimuli. In this case mine was the dimsum.

After my boss and I left the hospital we stopped by E-Mart to check out the dimsum I had eaten and what might have been in it that had made me sick. We got a list of ingredients from the guy behind the counter and he told us the stuff is actually imported from China and not made there at the store. Figures. I'm going to take the list with me to my checkup on Tuesday so maybe the doctor can tell me what it was he thinks I had the allergic reaction to. I hope he can figure it out just so I know for future reference...cause I definitely don't wanna go through this again...ever.

So yes, the moral of the story is...dimsum from E-Mart is bad, and anything imported from China is worth avoiding. Don't let this happen to you. Believe me it is NOT a pleasant experience. Thankfully though I am all right and I feel fine today. I guess it could've been a lot worse. Thank god it wasn't.

my IV wound (one of many)

the meds I have to take (so many!)