Since the first day in the ER, I have had this tube coming out of my back, draining fluid from my kidney. At first they were draining the remaining fluid from the cyst, but after a while they realized that the kidney fluid was not decreasing in volume as quickly as they had expected. Some tests revealed that the cyst had drained fully, but there was a tear in the kidney where the cyst had been, so what was draining now was just fluids from my kidney. Basically they were just syphoning off urine into my bag - so I was a colostomy bag person for a week. What an achievement at such an early age. They debated whether or not to undergo another surgery to repair the tear, or whether or not to let it heal on its own. In true wait-and-see fashion, they decided to wait and if the fluid decreased each day, once it got low enough they would take out the tube and let the kidney heal itself. This culminated yesterday when they shut down the tube and took the bag off. The tube is still coming out of my back and connected to my kidney, but it isn’t draining anything any more. I was told that if I had any pain after shutting the tube down, they would have to decide what else to do, but if I didn’t have any pain, I could go home today and just be an outpatient to a urologist in the future. And I haven’t had any pain, luckily.
I spoke to my doctor when he came around this morning during rounds with a bunch of other doctors, asking him if I would be getting out today, since that’s what everybody had been telling me yesterday. All I could get out of him was, “Tomorrow”. Awesome. This is how most interactions with my doctor go. Very little information flow from him to me. And people keep telling me to throw a fit, or to be the ‘squeaky wheel’, but it’s just not that easy. If I ask the nurse to tell my doctor I need to talk to him, she either tells me she could not reach him or he’s in surgery and he will come by later, which he never does. This has gotten really old, but by this point I have basically resigned myself not to get worked up over it. I know that part of it is the language barrier - I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I don’t speak the language, so it is really easy to avoid me, and there’s not really much I can do. Especially if I ask for my doctor and I am told that he’s in surgery. What can I say to that? I can’t exactly demand he come and see me when my whole point is that I’m perfectly fine. In the States I might threaten to rip someone a new one if they don’t let me out of here, but A) I can’t take it out on these sweet, giggling nurses and B) they wouldn’t understand what the hell I’m saying anyway. And when I do say something adamant such as “I’ve got to get out of here. I have to go home.” the doctor or nurse just looks at me sort of pityingly, giving that uncomfortable laugh that Koreans do in awkward situations.
Dad pointed out that also against my crusade to be released from the hospital is the fact that there is no insurance company involved. The doctors here are much more apt to use the wait-and-see approach with patients because there is nobody breathing down their necks to make a move or let me go. I am pretty much the only one here whose main goal is to get me out of this hospital ASAP. Who knew I would be making a case for big insurance? It’s like Korea is bizarro world.
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