Health comes first, after ER experience in Korea

I landed in Korea on a Friday afternoon.
By 8pm, I was in the ER.
Two days before arrival, severe food poisoning had already knocked me flat. Nothing stayed down. I hadn’t eaten in 48 hours and had become very familiar with the bathroom floor.

Then, just when I thought the worst was over — the Internal bleeding started.
Every trip to the toilet ended in red. After the 5th or 6th time, I stopped convincing myself it would pass and went to the hospital.

Within minutes of describing my symptoms, nurses had me in a hospital gown and lying down. What followed was fast and clinical — CT, MRI, bloodwork — and then, without much warning, a rectal exam.

The nurse smiled and said:
“조금 불편하실거에요!” — “It’ll be a little uncomfortable!”

Her definition of little and mine were clearly very very different.

When I asked where the bathroom was, the nurse looked at me and said:\

“화장실 못가세요. 기저귀에 싸셔야 합니다.”
“You cannot go to the bathroom. You must defecate on the bed, use the diaper.”

I pushed back. I walked in here on my own, did I not?

“The last patient who said that collapsed on the way to the toilet. Same symptoms as you.”

So there I was. ER bed. Diapers. 11pm on a Friday night — doing my absolute best to hold onto whatever dignity I had left. (I did not have much left.. my dad was beside me and I have to say this is not the type of father and son moment I want to repeat)

I assumed I’d be home in a few hours.
I wasn’t.

More tests. IV nutrition. Bleeding monitoring. I lay there watching the hours pass, tethered to a drip, wondering how I got to this.
Around 1am Saturday, I was moved to a shared ward — five beds, and crucially, I can walk to the bathroom myself.

They discharged me around noon the next day. I still couldn’t eat for another two days, but I walked out. And honestly? I’ve never been more grateful just to walk out of a building.

It was a nightmarish experience and I imagined this discomfort could have become weeks. Weeks could have become months. That ER bed was a glimpse into a version of life I don’t want — and one that’s surprisingly easy to stumble into.

I’m writing this as a note to myself as much as anything else.

When I’m cutting corners on sleep, skipping meals, ignoring the signs my body is sending — I want to remember this night. The gown. The drip. The diapers. The ‘little’ discomfort especially.