royally pissed.

i am so royally pissed off right now and i can't even do anything about it. this is why korea sucks. this is why korea is so backwards. and this is why this country is still so un-effing democratic.

ok, i should start with an explanation of histadelia. but i can't. my stomach is actually BURNING up from how angry i am. i can feel my stomach just warming up and being 5 degrees hotter than the rest of my body. i'll be surprised if my face doesn't turn bright red either.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHH i'm so maddddddddddddawoeirjrgsjnwerjfiuyraewhfgjhbvbdaigureituga;s;jklfwheugfurejgnajna;oiserjiowa;jkvnjfdagregaerghfrsfjr;kljngawr-039ii8urjfngvbsae,dg,wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgffffffffffrliiiiiiiiiiiiijgrlah;grlhjoghloblegwa;o

i HATE KOREA. i HATE my homestay mom. i HATE effing KOREA. I HATE HATE HATE KOREA.

and maybe just MAYBE it's because she just laughed in my face and told me basically to piss off. and maybe just MAYBE she could be right but i don't care because i am so pissed. and indignant. and i wanna punch her in the face and come back with my bloodwork and prove her wrong bc i don't care if she graduated from seoul national med school. she still ONLY went to college/med school in korea. she still ONLY is a podunk professor at a school she acknowledges is ranking middling at best. because she still is ONLY a woman in korea. she still has to do the housework, and cook, and clean in this house because she is a woman in korea, regardless of if she thinks she's smarter than her husband. he has a better (paying) job than her. and her kids are gonna end up messed up because of her. i get SO annoyed that she thinks she is smarter than me because she went to seoul national med school. i'm going to COLUMBIA EFFING LAW. I COULD'VE GONE TO HARVARD LAW BUT CHOSE NY INSTEAD OF BOSTON. I'M IN KOREA ON A CHARITY CASE AND I'M SICK OF BEING THE NOBLE PERSON WHO IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW BETTER AND BE A BIGGER PERSON.


ok, so, last night i googled "benadryl acne" because i find it ridiculously intriguing that taking benadryl reduces my acne and redness and face hives or whatnot. because, seriously, who prescribes an anti-histamine to deal with acne/skin problems? all the research i did on benadryl said NOT A WORD about skin conditions (or even hives). so i google it, and i find a bunch of information on something called "histadelia" or a condition of high levels of histamines and high sensitivity to histamines.

i won't attach all the info here, bc there's a lot that i didn't understand (medspeak) and i don't have the patience right now to cite stuff. but basically a lot of the symptoms and conditions were things that i was like, oh yea i have that. and a lot of pieces fell into place and made sense (my insomnia, excessive sweating, intolerance of pain, extreme exhaustion but not being sleepy, even my excessive crying). anyway, those are just a few examples. so i do a bunch of research all yesterday and today and feel a little better because now it's not like i'm just being a big baby whining that korea is messing me up. PLUS once you identify the problem, you can figure out a solution. that's the american way.

so i tell my friends and family and they're all supportive and i'm getting bloodwork as soon as i get home etc. etc. etc.

and since my hostmom is a dr. i decide to run this by her and see what she thinks. i don't even know why i thought this was a good idea.

so i tell her i was doing research bc isn't she also a LITTLE curious as to what possible relationship could lie between my taking benadryl and my skin clearing up? and she's got this, oh what is coming next is gonna kill me.... look on her face. so i showed her some of my printouts from the internet and she's asking me where i got it and if i am "normal". so, what does this mean, "are you common?" apparently she wants to know if other american patients are like me. and i guess not everyone to my extent, and yes we probably overmedicate in the US and big pharma DOES encourage us with those ads to go to our dr. and tell them what we already have and just to prescribe our meds. i'm not saying our system is perfect. but NEITHER IS THERIS.

EFFING KOREA. she tells me that if i were one of her patients for REAL she would just throw all my research out and tell me to go home. she says patients don't do this in korea. and in korea drs tell their patients that time will heal every/anything. THIS IS WHY KOREA IS STILL IN THE 1980s. WHAT KIND OF DR. TELLS PPL THAT TIME HEALS ALL? that's about heartache and loss and death, not DISEASE AND DIABETES. she brushes it off and then is all like "honestly, if a korean patient did this the dr would laugh and tell them to leave" and NOWHERE in the hippocratic oath does it say you can NOT take your patients seriously and laugh at them.

THATS YOUR JOB AS A DOCTOR. YOU LISTEN TO PEOPLE. TO THEIR CONCERNS, WORRIES, ANXIETIES. YOU LISTEN TO THEIR STORIES AS MUCH AS THEIR PULMONARY MUSCLE. and i would've been ok with hearing, "i know you are really worried about your health and your skin, but i think part of it could be just paranoia and stress and dealing with living in Korea. you're just manifesting your unhappiness here and trying to pinpoint it and find something to blame so that you can solve it. and if you really want you can do the bloodwork, but i really think your specific case is more stress and nerves than anything biomediphysical" and i can ACCEPT that. because i DO agree that part of it is just my unhappiness manifests itself and if i CAN find a reason for it all then it's easier to deal with. a medical condition is something i can work at, something i can fix, something more tangible than "i'm tired and lethargic and unhappy-what should i do?"

but no, she laughs at me. tells me i'm "weird/strange/odd" repeatedly. tells me "this doesn't make any sense" (wait really? the fact that tomatoes and strawberries are naturally high in histamines and i kept having allergic reactions after eating them and especially a lot of them means nothing? the FACT that my skin clears up when i take benadryl and it makes life livable doesn't mean ANYTHING???). koreans are SO into their stupid hierarchies and boxes that they are SERIOUSLY the proverbial ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. bc she is a "doctor" and i am barely a college graduate means SOMEHOW SHE KNOWS MY BODY BETTER THAN ME. THAT'S BULLSHIT. (sorry, mommy, but i'm just SOOOOO MADDDDDDDDD).

i KNOW my body. i KNOW me. and i KNOW that SOMETHING is wrong. i HAVE known that something is wrong. i HAVE known that my skin problems had an internal cause and not an external one. i KNEW how i was washing my face or what i was washing it with didn't have much to do with it. EVEN MY SKINCARE LADY (who is not a dermatologist or actually medically/scientifically trained in skin) said i should go to the doctor/hospital/dermatologist because my skin problems were more than skin-deep. and she thought NEW JERSEY = NEW ORLEANS.

KOREA is NOT going to go anywhere or become anything big because the "knowledged/learned" people are so content with what they think IS. because they know EVERYTHING and seniority means life and anything DIFFERENT is WRONG or not even worthy of being considered. THEY ARE SO CLOSE-MINDED!!! (i put that hyphen in every space but the one where it belongs...). i HATE HER. i HATE KOREA. THEY ARE SO STUPID. THEY ARE SO STUPID. THEY ARE SO STUPID. THEY ARE SO WRONG. SHE IS SO WRONG. I HATE HER. HER STUPID KIDS ARE RETARDED OR SOCIALLY HANDICAPPED. (okay now i'm just being unfair and horrible. i shouldn't take it out on them). but she thinks that they're smarter than me because they're HERS and i don't think that's a fair rationalization.

she ends the conversation with, "i don't want to talk about this i really don't want to hear anything about this. you are living in my house and because this is not a business i don't want to talk about it". so i'm not sure if that means she wants me to PAY her to listen to me or she is being "nicer" to me bc i'm not JUST a stupid misinformed patient. as i walk back to my room trying not to cry and punch her in the face (thank goodness i was never much of one for slamming doors) she starts laughing again and sighs and tells her husband, "it would be so hard to be a doctor in america, the patients are so annoying, they just make things up to annoy the doctors". DID SHE FORGET I UNDERSTAND KOREAN!??!?!



i'm sorry korea is "easy" to be a doctor because you just disregard your patients and treat them like crap and LORD your doctorship over them and your word is BOND/SACRED. in america, it doesn't matter if you have your MD, if i tell you my philangie is hemorrhaging you open me up and take a looksee. and THAT is the beauty of our democracy. doctors are doing patients a SERVICE. they are not elitist screwups.

PLUS, what really peeved me i think, was her attitude of "i'm trying my best not to get mad at you and that's why i'm laughing instead of telling you how retarded you are and how OFFENDED i am that you would even think of self-diagnosing." i seriously got the vibe that SHE was the one who was trying hard not to get mad... and she was doing some sort of angel/saint thing by NOT being annoyed at me and laughing instead.

i'm so out of here.

(ugh. i had SUCH a good day, too!! whatever, i'm gonna keep on smiling and be a fake korean back to her. i already know she'll be passing along the story of her crazy homestay to her friends and family. so let me just put it out on the internet first.)

and don't worry. this was just a stupid annoying thing of today. i'll be back to happy again in the am. =)

addendum: last angry rant i swear.
imo is RETARDED. and i thought of a good example. i can't believe she told me to drop this and never bring it up like i was really starting to annoy HER. anyway the example, when my little sister was an infant, she kept crying and my mom took her to the doctor over and over again and they kept saying nothing was wrong and it was just a cold and she was naturally a crier. then, my illiterate halmunni held her and told my mom "this is a dying child/you're gonna lose her" (the translation is rough) and my mom IMMEDIATELY took her to the ER and told them to do SOMETHING. and the drs LISTENED. turns out she was super pneumonia-ed out and it WAS actually impossible for her to be crying that loud with fluid-filled lungs... (but that just tells you something about my sister-do NOT get on her bad side, she crazy!). but the POINT is. the AMERICAN NEW JERSEY doctors LISTENED. to my illiterate grandmother, to my broken english-ed mom. so do NOT tell me, this cheongju doctor is too good to listen to ME.

this is the beauty of the america i grew up with/in. everyone's opinions count the same. (yes i know in the previous entry i said smart people's votes should count more and now i take it back if only temporarily). the doctor's opinion does not NECESSARILY automatically outweigh MY opinion of what's going on in my body. all our opinions are listened to. or should be, as far as doctors that i know go.