The Faces of Those Who Gave Me A New Life
|
|
| These are the two ladies who are first in power authority and control of every patient's recovery and health. Without the first lady, people could have succumbed to serious complications of health. The second lady with the white cap had full responsibility to direct the ultimate responses of all doctors and had the awesome responsibility to solely provide for the life support of every person at the hospital not just the patients. I am honored to have met the people who server on the highest level of the hospital building. |
|
| |
|
|
|
Mihun works at the front desk as the primary receptionist. She is fun, caring and very attractive. Mihun was very kind to welcome me back and offer me a nice gingerbread cookie and coffee. During my initial stay there was a small plumbing need with a 5th floor sink. Dr. Jun tried to fix it but as soon as Mihun stepped into check on progress there were suddenly five male patients crammed into the small room and suddenly it was fixed. Everyone wanted to help Mihun.
|
|
|
The third male in the group was a very kind young man responsible for coordinating the imaging process of the MRI equipment. I was impressed with his politeness and his expertise with the imaging resolution of the MRI of my study as well as those of numerous other patients. During my recent check-up he skillfully positioned my body for the needed x-rays by which Dr. Jun could make a definitive analysis of my fortunate progress toward healing.
|
|
|
| Ooree is the one beautiful girl who could see right through me because she produced the MRI and X-ray images to show how serious my original condition was and finally produced the images to proved that my spine was back in the shape that God had made it with the help of some internal titanium hardware. |
|
| Nichole is the one who spoke English with me every night. Her honesty, beauty and helpfulness were qualities that made her my single most important friend during my first and last hospital stay. She was kind enough to give me her e-mail address and tell me of her plans to marry soon and vacation in the Philippines. Thank You Nicole! |
|
|
| The nurse I saw the most. She always had a cheerful countenance which made the pain of injections undetectable. Her gentle ways eased recovery faster than any other medication. |
|
|
| Still trying to get her photo. On my second monthly visit it was her day off ....perhaps next month. I Pray! |
| The one nurse who immediately identified the Christian hymns floating out of the speakers of my little computer. She spoke very little English but told me that she too was a Christian and attended a church locally. I was pleasantly surprised as I briefly shared my testimony. Unfortunately the photo of her didn't appear in the camera file when I got home. |
|
|
Happy and healed. My joy and privilege to have my picture taken (from left to right) Mihun, myself, Suyeoun and Ooree. With a reception like this I felt wonderfully alive with these three beautiful young women from Jun Spine Hospital.
|
|
|
| Sue-hyeon whose delicate beauty was accentuated by the fact that her husband is a microbiologist doing pioneering research on e-coil bacteriophages DNA transport systems. During my recent visit she was so kind to bring me a plate of chocolate chip cookies with coffee. She requested that a new image be placed on the web page so I placed both with the first image being the most recent. |
|
| She has a new baby. Her husbands is very handsome and a picture of her family sits right in front of her computer. She was very thoughtful to adjust my system of back support that helps so much and was the one lady who had legs long enough to reach up and secure the LAN cable over the recovery door entrance way. Without her, my Internet connection would not have happened as efficiently and safely as it did. |
|
|
|
My anesthesiologist; her face was the first and last face I saw before leaving the hospital. She administered the local anesthetic which allowed the deeper spinal analgesia along a loner thin needle where she could control the continuous flow to desensitize the lower spinal incision site.
It is important for an anesthesiologist to monitor the patients level of consciousness during this critical spinal surgery as operating in and around the spinal cord is so critical to pain and mobility issues after surgery.
My encounter with her during surgery was one where I was in constant dialogue with a gentle young woman who spoke English very well. My second and last meeting was more on the Korean level as my apparent level of health indicated her freedom to relax.
|
|
| One image with two reflections. The surgeon on the left is the one whose hands were used by God to put my lower 5th lumbar vertebrae back in the place where the Maker of my body had originally placed it. I didn't know he was the one who did my surgery until the day I was leaving. I had met him in an adjacent room on the 4th floor. He couldn't speak English but carefully explained in Korean how unique and difficult my surgery was. He is the actual surgeon and within the above elevator image is a reflection of the back of his head and the cheerful smile from the anesthesiologist whose picture is here to the left. |
|
The One - The Conductor - The Directing Surgeon
All You Ever Wanted To Know About The Humble American Educated Friend
Who Is The Amazing Orchestrator of My Life Change Surgery
Is Located At The Below Link
|
|
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words - My surgical procedure step by step.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spondylolisthesis Interactive Videos
For your information, this spinal problem has nothing to do with age but happens frequently to people who carry heavy loads, involved with impact sports or a have a simple accident which impacts their spines.
|
|
|
|
Friday, October 19, 2007 2:59 PM
Truly the first moments leading to the rest of my life. I just finished a hospital discharge interview with the surgeon who performed the life changing surgery on my lower spine where the lowest movable vertebrae was in the process of scissoring my spinal cord between the immovable sacral body. The conversation I had with him was like no other I have had in my life as he performed the hospital discharge process in the same way as he did the intake and surgery which was by asking me to explain in medical detail the cause, symptoms, surgical procedure and result.
My surgeon knew I had completed more than a year of medical research and was totally fluent in the medical language and methodologies associated with the surgery I needed. During the hospital intake, my surgeon Dr. Chun carefully examined all my x-rays and MRIs then looked right at me and said, "Form what I can see on these images, you don't need surgery". Sitting there in pain that words can't describe, he simple asked me if I had pain in my legs, to which I quickly responded "no". He simply repeated his first answer and that was, "You don't need surgery".
I thought in the midst of my pain that I should get up and run out of the hospital as fast as I could. I looked at my wife who was not listening to the doctor but watching my life continue in the excruciating pain that began in 1979, culminated in 1995 and was shoved to the point for which words lose all power to explain in 2005 when I was hit by a car while on a bike on Jeju Island . From 2005 onward, I began a diary page explaining the details of events as they developed from that time until I finally reached the closing observation for this diary bourn on pain. That closing note was the ending statement to a story initiated by a pain which spurred the web page into existence.
As I wrote this, The Lord brought to my attention that the physical pain that was no longer in my life but had been translated to the power to free others from pain by placing me in the exact category that brought me to Korea alone in 1998 (a story to be written soon I hope because it involves a disabled person in Alaska who knew of the Koreans' infamous lack of compassion for the disabled).
Which is more awesome, having pain that makes you pray for death more than breath or being set free from that pain with the full awareness or other peoples' suffering that exceeds your own and the power and ability to free others from that pain? At one time I had pain beyond comprehension and now God is gently giving me the ability and means to free others who suffer in hidden silence.
Without the pain, my vision cleared and I saw the reality of how it is that I found help, love and redemption in the hands and hearts of people, who do not look like me, do not speak my language and have lived in a culture with a 5000 year old unbroken history. If my God chooses to work through these people who have lifted a cross placed upon me by my own blood, I can certainly say that I owe my alliance to these people and this land they live in. I will do all I can by God's direction to protect all altruistic goodness that transformed my life, for it is ultimately God who has made this choice. My allegiance is to the people who through pain and divine love have found that the pathway of hurry is not a path that God walks in. Those whom I can help are easy to find for they are the ones laying in the dust of a world rising out of the back breaking burden of agricultural life into the vanity of wealth and prosperity gained in the race to achieve the ever elusive "American Dream."
Though the doctor said I didn't need surgery because I had no serious symptoms (like leg pain) that would warrant a surgical procedure, I still remained sitting in incomprehensible agony. I really didn't want to experience further pain under a surgical knife. I really wanted to avoid looking into the face of my wife who couldn't live with the pain I was experiencing, the face of my wife who was deaf to this doctor's English dialogue with me but totally fluent in the language of pain as well as English, she simple said, "Have the surgery".
Without logical grounds, I simply followed the flow of incomprehensible inner peace and turned to the doctor and said, "Go ahead and do the surgery". His quick response was a warning that if I proceeded with the surgery I will most certainly find my self in recovery dealing with numbness, pain and tingling in my legs. I thought I have no pain or tingling in my legs now, why would any sane person submit to a surgical procedure to induce a pain and discomfort that was nowhere to be found in the tumult of torture of that pre surgical moments. I simple said, "I understand."
At that time I was less than 15 hours from the start of surgery. I could go into the details of the actual surgical procedure performed under local anesthesia but I have no need to detail here something I certainly will never forget. Since I'm not likely to forget what I experienced under a local anesthetic for 2 hours, I will move on to what may be more note worthy data.
It was 2 weeks after my surgery on October 19, 2007 that my doctor encountered me in the walk ways and asked me if I was ready for my discharge debriefing and I said, "Sure." I went down to his office on the 3rd floor and there met his staff of beautiful nurses and secretaries and I mean really beautiful. I would even venture to say that part of the speed of my recovery is due in part to being constantly attended to by them.
Upon entering his office he took out the standard diagnosis and discharge form. Unlike any doctor I have met in my life, he asked me to diagnose my intake symptoms in step by step advanced English medical expressions. It was like taking a test because he knew I had studied the medical procedure in depth. With a numeric listing of 1, 2, 3, he took down my dictation. I only stood correction on the name of the fusion device as well as the bone harvest method. I finished by listing the rest of the spinal fusion procedure and passed with about a 90 percentile rating. I couldn't believe it, my doctor let me dictate the intake symptom as well as surgical procedure and discharge. This doctor is truly unique in my life and historical understanding of Korea .
So now I begin to stand having the burden of my cross lifted as I become aware of the greater pain suffered by others in this world of grief. I have witnessed children and adults killed or maimed in this world's wild pursuit of selfish gain. My path through life has been unmistakably marked by fires of fears. Fear is God's way of pointing out where error resides in our lives; by facing these fears we gain the strength to over come and experience victory. Once the fear is defeated we also gain the very power to assist others in touching the face of God where all fear vanishes.
As mentioned in other places in my story, my last and greatest fear was not death because death through suffering in pain had become my dream of freedom. Rather, my greatest fear was being in a Korean hospital tended to by a staff of over worked, under paid, uneducated so called medical personnel who appeared to be the fast food service providers for the adjoining morgues.
My experience at Jun's Spine Clinic was the antithesis of this fear; for it was a veritable flight to heaven. After the 2 hour surgery, I was to spend 2 weeks in recovery which I viewed as unbearable but soon discovered I feared more the time of my departure.
As I am writing in the article regarding Korean Compassion, I realize I still have one huge fear left and that is the prospects of being not just a disabled person in Korea but a disabled foreigner. The article explains the details of my observations regarding the miserable fate of the disabled in this country. What I now need to come to grips with is the surgery I received produces the same results for anyone anywhere in the world who undergoes this procedure; I am temporarily disabled and will be for about a year, if I'm careful.
I am happy to see the faces of the students again for their eyes like angles see only the virtues and their love and compassion come without association to financial gain; in this I find my current life. The report on facing disability from a first hand perspective will be an addendum to the original article dealing with Korean Compassion.
