넌 나의 구원*

* =  you are my salvation; from Epik High's One

An update!  And so soon - look who's making up for lost time!

Well, the official reason I'm updating today is because I have to (obviously) recount the tale of how Yonsei Severance Hospital charged me upwards of $300 to tell me that I have no food allergy.  The unofficial would be to sing the glories of Korean street food.  All in due time.

First up, My Very First Trip to the Hospital (Korean style):
Actually, it was not my first trip; it was more like my 4th or 5th, but this was the first time I've ever had a significant medical procedure done in this country, if you call an allergy skin test a "medical procedure," which is debatable - it's not like I got an appendectomy or a nose job (wait for it, kids!  I'm saving up my money!).  Anyway, if you have no idea why I needed to get an allergy test done, refer to this post for my near-death experience (literally) and let us begin.

So about three weeks ago, the combined powers of Jung Min Unni and her mom managed to get me an allergy consultation at Yonsei Severance Hospital, a giant hospital rather obviously affiliated with Yonsei University that is located just a short 10 minute walk from my apartment.  I was told that there was no need for me to speak Korean, as the doctor and nurse were fine with English; I later realized that Yonsei's staff clearly operates with a generous definition of what "fine with English" means, because neither of them were conversant enough to get everything across without my help in Korean.  In any case, the end result of the consultation was that the doctor ordered an allergy skin test, and why the consultation was necessary, beyond sucking $50 out of my wallet, for this obvious conclusion is still beyond me.

The actual test was scheduled for today at 1:40, and I got there right on time - only to be told that they wouldn't start my test until I paid first at the International Clinic.  Okay, because I was really going to try and dodge the check.  Thanks, Yonsei.  Anyway, after paying an absurd amount for the first visit, I went ahead and called my insurance company to beg politely ask if they could provide coverage despite "allergy" not being listed as part of my benefits.  They said that they were partnered with Yonsei Severance and so coverage was a definite possibility - they'd open a case for me and would call the hospital to see what they could do.  Well, I discovered they probably weren't able to do much - the asshole at the International Clinic who takes payment told me that the insurance company couldn't guarantee payment, and so I had to pay for the whole thing up front.  345,000 won (~$300).  I was so pissed I wanted to cry.  I took the receipt and kind of told the guy that this was bullshit, but of course that usually gets people nowhere, and I am no exception.  I'll be filing a claim for reimbursement and hopefully that will work out.

Payment issues aside, I decided to come prepared for this visit by bringing along Yoonhee Unni, a dear friend of mine who is also a cellist from the Yale School of Music, to translate (yes, for the record, the only Korean people who like me are musicians.  Michelle Cho is the obvious exception, but she might have played piano at some point like all other Asian children.  Or maybe she doesn't actually like me).  Yoonhee Unni has translated before, so I felt like she'd be pretty helpful in working between the doctor/nurse and me - IF THEY WOULD LET HER INTO THE ROOM.  Despite my near-begging, the nurse adamantly refused to let her into the testing room with me (which was just a portion of a room closed off with a curtain, goddammit!).  I was extremely pissed off, especially because the nurse - who tried hard, I'll give her that - couldn't even properly tell me which articles of clothing I needed to take off.  She could have told me in Korean, but at that point, I was so frustrated with the whole process that I refused to use anything but English.  I'm kind of a brat.

But why did I have to take ANY articles of clothing off?  In my (limited) experience, allergy skin tests are usually performed on the arm, no?  Well, turns out that despite my insistence at the consultation that I wanted/needed to be tested for a seafood and shellfish allergy, the doctor for some reason ordered a complete test for all food allergies.  I stole a glance at the medical sheet for this and was mildly horrified to discover that they planned to test me for 63 different allergies.  What the WHAT?  To state the obvs, my arm wasn't big enough for 63 tests.  Both arms wouldn't have even been enough.  So they drew a bunch of tic-tac-toe boards on my back and tested me there.  63 pricks in the back = nothankyou.

15 minutes of waiting for the test results and another 20 minutes of waiting for the damn doctor to tell me the test results (they couldn't have just done it right then and there?), I was informed that I tested negative for every single food allergy, all shellfish and fish included.  Pause for sigh of relief, but a tempered sigh of relief due to the outrageous cost of the whole ordeal.  The doctor said that it's possible that I'm allergic to a food additive - MSG or something like it - which could have been present on the shrimp or in some seasoning that I ate when I had the initial reaction.  His only other alternative was to test for an allergy to antibiotics, because I was on an antibiotic to treat a sinus infection when I had the reaction.  I declined to schedule a test for this, because (1) I'm fairly sure I'm not allergic to any antibiotic (I had already been taking it for 3 days prior to my near-death experience, so I think if I was allergic, something should have happened beforehand) and (2) unless I am guaranteed up-front coverage or am POSITIVE about getting a reimbursement, I am not paying for any further tests at Yonsei.  Given that I'll probably be making a trip to the US in November (details to follow), I could always just get tested there if I really felt like it.  The antibiotic test, as I was told, is a bit different because it's an eating test and not a skin test - and it takes all day.  You start in the morning, eat an antibiotic, wait 2 hours.  Eat another, wait 2 hours.  Repeat.  Repeat.  No thanks.

Anyway, I did get to spend time with Yoonhee Unni, which was great because she, too, is going back to America this weekend (whyyyyyyy), and I was given the green light to go out and eat a sushi smorgasbord if I so chose, so I guess this ordeal was kind of necessary and kind of a good thing.

Wait, did I just say I was given the green light to go eat fish again (after a horrifying 3 months of making all of my friends work around my stupid and actually non-existent dietary restriction)?  Oh, I did - so naturally, my first meal was - 포장마차 음식 (po-jang-ma-cha food)!!!  Also known as Korean street food.

I don't own this photo, but NOMS.  This is what it looks like.

 Now, before you freak out that Daddy's baby girl is eating poisonous street crap...don't.  Korea is not India.  Seoul is not Calcutta.  Korean street food is totally safe and absolutely mother effing delicious, SO MUCH MORE so than anything served in A-muh-rica.  It's served at little street carts called 포장마차 (po-jang-ma-cha), and typical offerings include 떡볶이 (ddeokbokki, fat rice cakes in spicy sauce), fish cake, dumplings, 순대 (soon-dae, Korean stuffed sausages), and other assorted fried goodies.  Because fish cake and a lot of the fried offerings contain fish (even ddeokbokki is cooked and served with fish cake), I haven't been able to eat at a single one all summer.  Knife in my heart.  Buuuut because I was told by official authorities that I can eat fish til the cows come home, I decided that my first meal must naturally be these delicacies of which I was so long deprived.  That, and these street carts are popular for people eating alone, which...yeah.

Anyway.  There are street carts everywhere, and most offer the same things, so I picked one whose rice cakes looked to my liking and settled in for a very, very satisfying platter of ddeokbokki.  Up until today, I've only been able to eat ddeokbokki at certain types of restaurants that prepare it on the table for you (as in it's not been pre-cooked in a giant vat and then dished out).  If it's made to order, I could tell them to leave the fish cake out.  But restaurant ddeokbokki is almost never as good as the street variety, and those fat spicy rice cakes that I consumed today were some of the best I've ever had.  And the cost?  ~$1.50.  BAM

But after paying the very nice ajumma and taking my leave from this particular street cart, I decided I was still hungry.  I wandered around a bit until I found another, and this time ordered pan-fried dumplings.  For the same price of $1.50, I was expecting maybe 5 or so, but the ajumma gave me over 10, I think - and then generously slathered them in spicy ddeokbokki sauce.  I ate them rather animalistically.  It was glorious.  I walked away with lips burning from all that red pepper paste and a very happy stomach.  So it wasn't the healthiest of meals, but it was a wonderful way to celebrate emancipation from dietary restriction.

Although I'll probably never eat shrimp again for as long as I live.  Blame it on the Garcia effect.

*POST SCRIPT
This made my entire day.  Seriously.  Watch it even if you don't give a sh*t about the Ground Zero Mosque.

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