Medical Adventures Pt. 87

I had another visit to the doctor last week. I know it probably seems like I'm under medical supervision quite frequently, but you know if I would just get a clue and stop texting when walking down stairs and eating cheese, I could probably save myself some money.

So this time, I went off the deep end and decided to visit an Oriental Medicine doctor. Every time someone at my school gets sick they go to the Oriental Medicine doctor and get miraculously healed, so I was curious. Korean people are quite robust, and robust-ness is something I could use a bit of, so I headed to the Oriental Medicine doctor to see if he could prescribe me something to fix that.

Actually, a few years ago I snapped my neck around on a rollercoaster (Hi Nicole! Please blame your husband.) and ever since my head has felt annoyingly heavier, so much so that my neck sometimes has trouble holding it up. Some might suppose that emptying some of the useless facts out of my head (my nickname is "Wiki" or "Jess-o-pedia") might make my head lighter, but I'm afraid I might need all this extraneous knowledge someday when playing Trivial Pursuit.

So off I went to visit the only Western-certified Oriental Medicine doctor in all of Korea - and guess what - he's not even from the Orient!! He's Austrian. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger. After talking with him, he wanted to run a gamut of tests, and seeing as my afternoon was free and Korean medical tests are ridiculously cheap, I obliged.

The first thing I was subject to was an MRI. Now, this MRI was not covered by insurance, but you couldn't find a cheaper MRI test on Ebay. For those of you who haven't had one, basically you lay on a bed that slides into this big machine that uses radiation to get pictures of your internal-ness.

Usually people's biggest concern with having an MRI is the fact that the space you have to inhabit inside the machine is ridiculously small and coffin-like. I, on the other hand, am claustrophillic, the opposite of claustrophobic. I loves me some small spaces. I grew up sleeping under the covers and I hope to someday drive an ultra-compact car. To me, being buried alive actually seems like a nice way to spend the afternoon.

No, my particular concern regarding the MRI was given to me by the attendant-man just as he was about to slide me into the machine.

"Two important things for test," he said. "Number one - be still. Number two - only swallow when I tell you to."

Wait...I thought swallowing was a reflex. Like blinking. Don't swallow? That's like telling someone not to think of a pink zebra or their brain will explode.

Kablam.

"Well, what if there's an emergency???" I asked. He laughed and buckled me in. Glad this was funny for him.

Meanwhile I'm strategizing just how exactly I'm going to pull this off. He said there will be eight 2-minute episodes where I'm not allowed to swallow.

I thought about everything good in the world to keep me from swallowing. I thought about lying on the beach with a cold drink and a book before I reminded myself that I don't read and that fantasy was entirely implausible. I then began to panic, because I felt my throat muscles poise themselves for action and I knew the swallowing could only be stopped by my amazing powers of distraction. I ran through happy memories, relived past moments of laughter and contentment, and when things got really bad, I thought of my future children.

I am not trying to be dramatic; all of this actually happened in my busted-up head. I am indeed strange-r than I had previously deduced.

So after the MRI, the doctor decided to twist my limbs around (he called it "manipulation"; I called it "awkward") in an effort to contort my body back to its natural state. Some things popped, so apparently he was successful.

And then, the creme-de-la-creme, was the acupuncture. The acupuncture actually cost about $5. He would ask me (at points, seemingly ridiculous) medical questions and if I said yes, he would stick a tiny needle in some part of my body. TMJ? Two needles in your jaw. Digestive problems? Needles in the foot. Headaches? Two needles in the hands. When he put the needles in my hands, I told him that he had missed, and that my head was up here.

So after laying around for about 15 minutes, needles sticking out of me, looking like Frankenstein, the nurse came in and took the needles out and told me I could go. I started to put my jacket on when I felt a shooting pain in my shoulder. I looked down and saw two needles sticking out of my trapezius. I push the call button.

"Yes?" she says, rounding the corner. I point. She gasps. I smile. She apologizes. I smile. She takes them out. I continue smiling. She goes away.

I go to zip up my coat and feel another stabbing pain in my chest. I look down and see a needle fully jabbed into my sternum. I push the call button.

"Yes?" she says. I point. She gasps. Etc.

So between being zapped with radiation, twisted into a pretzel, and stabbed repeatedly, I actually feel a lot better. And to think I had reservations.