Bright White Room

Five-Hundred, Twenty-Five Thousand, Six-Hundred Days in Quarantiiiiiiiiiine......


As you know, I was put into a room with two other girls so that we could be separated from the rest of the camp. For a while, our friends were coming to visit us, but soon our fellow campers complained of our visitors and our friends stopped. I can't even describe how hurtful it is to be separated from our friends and to have people not want to be around us because we are sick. It is a situation I NEVER want to experience again. Thankfully, Michelle, Susan and Shannon never stayed away from me. Danielle, Megan and I were able to sneak out of our room at 5am on Sunday morning. I updated my blog and talked to Jon and Blaine over video chat. They both got a kick out of the fact that I wore a face mask on camera (It was a strictly enforced rule at camp that we all wear faces masks when inside. This rule actually made me happy because then we, sick people, were no longer being singled out). Before too much time went by, we snuck back to our room where I tried to keep myself busy, so as not to feel hurt by the quarantine in quarantine. It was so hard not to think about the fact that Michelle was just outside my door and I was not allowed to talk to her.

Later on in the day, Danielle realized that she needed to go to the hospital because she was so sick. I opened our door and yelled down the hallway for someone to take us. The wait was going to be about an hour for someone to come and get her. Ethan came to our room and told us we were ALL going to the hospital. I felt a sudden wave of fear come over me and I stared at him. "For how long will we have to stay there?" I asked. When he explained that it might be for a week, my eyes teared up and I said, "But I'm not sick! I don't want to be ALONE in a hospital room for that long when I'm not even sick." Ethan nodded and made a quick phone call. When he got off the phone he told us that the hospital will put us all in the same room. We all breathed sighs of relief (especially me). We had about twenty minutes to pack for our TBD amount of time stay in the hospital. I was able to say goodbye to Michelle from a distance as we were packing. "Pack as much as you can!" She said.

I finally had my bag packed, put my face mask on and it was time to walk out to the, "ambulance" (I use that term loosely because it was pretty much just a smelly, old van). The walk was surreal. There were random clusters of people standing in different parts of the building to say goodbye to the three hospital girls. It was like I was moving in slow motion. I was so uncertain about what was going to happen in my near future. At home, a hospital stay means my family and friends would keep me company the entire time I was there. In Korea, this meant I was being cut off from the world and it would be a lonely trip. At least I was going to be with the other girls. These thoughts were moving through my head on my walk. I said goodbye to the first cluster of people which happened to be Michelle, Ally and Susan. They snapped a picture of me on my way out...I'm sure I looked really pretty. On my way down the stairs Michelle shouted things like, "I'm so sorry I came up with the idea of us coming to Korea! I'm so sorry!" I laughed and told her she wasn't allowed to be sorry since I agreed to go.

I spent a ton of money, time, and effort to prepare for this trip. Michelle and I often talked about how pumped up we were to come to this country. We were so excited about being here that we made a trip to Powels to buy some books about Korea. After we bought our books, we took them to a nice restaurant and practiced Korean phrases over wine. We made jokes and talked excitedly about all of the things we'd see and do.

Well, here I am in Korea. I'm sitting, propped up in a hospital bed with three other girls, all from St. Loius Missouri.

Laura, 22, is in the bed across from me. She actually arrived here with You Sun a day after the rest of us did since they tested positive for swine flu later than us. I find Laura very sweet and highly entertaining. The adjective she uses most to describe things is, "Weird." I love listening to her stories about her friends and family. I love it even more when she randomly says things like, "This show is weird." Laura is thoughtful and often asks things about me and my job to show her interest. I'll miss her when this hospital visit ends.

Danielle, 21, is in the bed right next to me. She reminds me A LOT of someone I work with at home (I always think it's crazy when two complete strangers can have the same voice and mannerisms). Danielle has a great sense of humor and is fun to talk with about movies and music. We often recite movie quotes back and fourth. She does a killer impression of Kathy Lee Griffin's mom and Kyra Sedgwick. Danielle was the person who got the short end of the stick....or short end of the swine flu. She was very sick for three days straight. She had a fever and was told to take more medicine than the rest of this. Unfortunately, Danielle has chosen to go home early next week. Being this sick has just been too much for her...we'll miss her. :(

Megan, 21, is two beds down from me and has the same birthday as Jon! Megan has been the most positve person throughout this entire roller coaster ride. She has an infectious laugh that we all get to enjoy when she talks on the phone to her family. Since her mom is a flight attendant, she gets to fly to places for free. Hopefully she'll be coming to visit me in Portland soon after this trip.

You-Sun, 21 (Twenty in the United States since when Koreans are born they are considered one year old) is someone you are already familiar with. She was sadly placed into another room by herself. Poor You-Sun had to spend this entire hospital stay (about 5 days) all by herself. When she expressed how much she wanted to move into a room with people, the doctor eventually threatened to call the police to put her in jail if she continued to, "talk like that."

Condiscending Doctor, is someone who appears to have extreme distaste for us. Thankfully, we saw Monica way more often then we saw him.

Monica (her chosen English name), 25, by far the coolest nurse I have ever met. She is one of three nurses that worked with us. Monica went to great lengths to make us feel comfortable and happy. Her boyfriend teaches English. On the day of our arrival, she had called her boyfriend and wrote down some sentences she wanted to say to us. She read the sentences to us straight from her cards. "If there is anything else you need, feel free to call me," she said. We all smiled because when she said, "feel free" it actually came out, "peel pree".


We arrived Sunday night around 8:30pm. At the enterance of the hospital, we were greeted by a nurse in a space suit. Monica was covered head to toe with a white, plastic-like material. She wore goggles and a mask (of course) and escorted us down the hallway of the hospital. Ethan was still with us at this point and he carried my backpack on his shoulder. I took my backpack from him and he seemed relieved. We reached a doorway and the nurse pushed a button to make the door slide open. She motioned for us all to walk through and after Danielle, Megan and I went through the doorway, we watched Ethan in the hallway as the sliding door closed. Ethan waved to us with a concerned look on his face as we parted ways. He knew we were uncertain of what was happening.

Once behind the first sliding door, we nocticed we were in a small room with a sink and Monica instructed us each to wash our hands. After we were finished Monica pressed the button to open the next sliding door. The next room we walked into was bigger than the last. The entire room was white and cold looking. There were three beds against the opposite wall as we came in and one bed next to the bathroom. I had a huge smirk on my face as I put my bags on the floor next to my bed. I found it hilarious that we were being placed in this double doorway, sealed off room and that the nurse was wearing a full body suit. Monica took our temperatures and checked our blood pressure with straps that constrict with a machine sooo painfully tight that we laugh everytime we get checked.

The first day I woke up here, there was a gray cloud hovering over my head. I couldn't make any jokes and it was hard to laugh. Everything about staying in this room upset me. The beds are hard, we are supposed to re-use the same eating utensils, the bathroom stinks, it feels kind of humid and worst of all, zero internet access. All I could focus on was the negative. I didn't say much about it though, I just shut down. After a few hours I turned over to take a nap--anything to make the day pass by faster.

When I woke up Megan, with a cheerful smile, said, "We can call home now!" I made quite a few phone calls, but the only person I could get a hold of was my Aunt Dannette since Jon was at a basketball game and my mom was on a trip to North Dakota. I was so happy when I finally heard a familiar voice. "Oh hi!" Dannette said, "How are you?" I explained the entire situation to her. I told her how frustrated and confused I was about the whole situation. Dannette calmed me down by explaining to me what was normal in the medical world (she is a nurse and knows what is going on). She explained what the Koreans' thought process must have been as they put us in quarantine. It felt a little better to hear it from her. Throughout the phone call I was pretty short and to the point with my sentences. Towards the end of the call, Dannette, in a comforting and motherly tone of voice, said, "Christine, I know this is really, really hard, but just be strong because you are going to learn so much from this trip. You are going to have empathy for people who are really sick and have to go through things like this. We are all thinking of you and I will be sure to tell your mom I talked to you." It was when I heard her comforting tone of voice that my eyes started tearing up and my lip quivered. I had a hard time responding to her without a shaky voice. I didn't want to cry in front of the other girls the first day we were in the hospital. I thanked her for everything and said, "Tell Jon I love him." Dannette told me she would, of course. "I love you," I said.

"I love you too."

Our dinner wasn't bad. It was more Korean food, of course, but at least it was fried. It's so funny how at home, I hardly ever ate fried food, but now that I'm in a foreign country, fried food is a little taste of heaven. It's not that I have a problem with Korean food, it's that so far I haven't been able to have a choice of what I've eaten. It has either been cafeteria Korean food or hosipital Korean food....hmmm. I'm hoping to dine in a restaurant somewhere on this trip, where I can pick my own meal. I gladly ate the fried food and passed (as usual) on the kimchi.

Kimchi is served with every meal. It is basically cabbage fermented with chili paste. Koreans fill the cabbage with seasonings and plant it back into the ground to ferment, then serve it. Our teaching handbook had a couple of valuable health tips.

After we finished our dinner, we played with our electric beds. Danielle was the first person to discover the remote control to our beds (see photo of Danielle and the magical remote). Megan and I watched her move the head portion of her bed up and down. We then laughed as we moved our bed around to different angles. We discovered we were able to raise our beds up really high. "Let's race!" I said. We lighted up our beds and started our engines. "On your marks, get set...GO!" Turns out, Megan has the fastest bed...boo.

The next day I woke up feeling ten times better. I felt there was a light at the end of the tunnel, since we heard we might be able to get out of the hospital on Saturday. A lot of other great things happened as well. Our nurse, Monica, turned out to be really cool. She tried very hard to make our stay in the hospital as comfortable as possible. She brought up three bags of goodies she could find around the hospital. There are delicious Figg Newton-like cookies and little marshmallow cake things. I stood up for a while to do some stretches while watching T.V. We are able to watch two different channels that are in English. One of the channels plays mystery/problem solving shows (like House, Cold Case and Law and Order) along with great movies. The other channel is CNN. The T.V. pretty much stays on at all times. It really keeps our sanity and reminds us of home.

The doctor came in to break the news to us about our much more elaborate and accurate swine flu test. He did it in such a kind and gentle manner, "You're all positive." Then he said a few more things and walked out.

I talked to Jon for a really long time on the phone today (Luckly, the hospital is paying for our international telephone calls because we do not have internet here). He talked to me about what was going on at home and he also, oddly, filled me in on how Michelle was doing back at camp. He told me about how she mentioned thinking of going home early because of this insane experience. I didn't blame her for a second for wanting to go home. This trip has been horrible...but I still wanted her to stay in Korea with me after our quarantine was over. I told Jon I'd talk to her about it as soon as I got the chance. I figured, we made it this far, we might as well finish our trip. More importantly, our journey has been mostly negative; I would HATE to go home without seeking out some positive experience.

In the afternoon, Megan had the idea that we should make a count down on our wall so that we can look forward to the last day in the hospital. She pulled out magazines she brought along, then her and I sat on her bed and flipped through to tear out pictures for hanging. We now have a beautiful collage of photos, get well soon cards and inspirational words. We hung our horoscopes on the other side of the room and we have a Community Boyfriend hanging on the door of our bathroom. His name is Roberto and he looks rather beautiful with no shirt on.

As Megan and I sat on her bed cutting out collage pictures for our walls, familiar faces popped up in the window of our sliding door. A nurse stood outside the door with two other campers Dan and Brice. Lara, Danielle, Megan and I all screeched and ran over to the door to say, "Hi" to them. Unfortunately the guys were shoed off to their room before we had a chance. They left us a nice big care package sent to us from the rest of the Wando campers. Inside the package, was a nicely written green note addressed to us...

"Christine, Danielle, Megan, Laura and You Sun,
Well, it's not exactly what you
requested but I hope that these
snacks and drinks will at least
lift your spirits a bit. We all
miss you and cannot wait for
the big reunion! Hang in there! :)

Love, Kristin and all the Swine '09 Gang!"

I laughed for a ridiculously long time at the Swine ' 09 joke. Then I proceeded to repeat the joke to everyone I talked to on the phone that day.


In Korea, everything is "Our". Koreans are thought of as one, so everything belongs to everyone. You-sun explained to me one night that whenever Koreans refer to a noun, they use "Our" before it. I said, "So, that means your boyfriend is our boyfriend?" We both laughed about it and the inside joke has continued ever since. Hence, Roberto is our boyfriend.

When Monica came in to do her usual vital sign check, we were dancing along to one of the Korean commercials. She laughed and talked to us about a popular singing group in Korea called The Wondergirls. She stood by my bedside and told me about how she has songs on her computer at home that she could bring for me to put on my computer. We all got really excited...we loooove Monica. :)

When it was night time, we pulled our beds together and had a night of just being girls. We each took turns asking questions and then going around the circle to answer them. The questions were like, "Who was your first kiss?" and blah, blah, blah. We laughed, talked about my husband and Megan's fiance then sang songs until we passed out from being tired.

The next day we all woke up tired. Another nurse came in to check our blood pressure, circulation and temperature. We all took naps and then in the afternoon, Megan and I spent a little while doing exercises. We copied some moves from out of her magazines and stretched in the middle of the room on the floor. Megan was very patient with me as I laughed my sloppy way through the exercises.

After a sweaty exercise session, I took a loooong and hot shower and as I dried off Megan knocked on the bathroom door, "Michelle, just called! She is going to call back in five minutes!" I squealed. It had been three days since I'd talked to Michelle! I was dying to hear how she was doing and fill her in on my story. I knew she'd laugh about the space suits and the robotic beds. We talked for an hour or so. Within that hour, I was able to chat with Susan and Shannon for a short time. Michelle told me about how most of the people at the camp had gone a little germ crazy and took everything WAY too seriously. Michelle explained to me that everyone has to line up to take their Tamiflu medicine twice a day and that it felt like she was in a "Crazy House."


When I hung up the phone with her I told the girls all of the strories Michelle told me of the people back at Wando. We all laughed, called up You Sun to fill her in on the gossip and watched One Fine Day.

Suddenly, Monica's face popped up in the door window. We were all so excited to see her face that we screamed, "MONICA!!" She held up the flash drive she promised us and left it outside of our sliding door as usual. Just like always, we waited for the second sliding door to close before opening ours. Then we pressed the button to open our door (we've decided being in this room reminds us of The Jetsons) and picked up the flash drive. I was able to con Danielle into putting her songs onto my iTunes. Now I have a ton of great Korean pop music on my computer.

We fell asleep watching Pirates of the Carribean.

We woke up to a nurse taking our blood pressure again. We found out that this day would be our last full day. We didn't do much except talk on the phone, take pictures and watch T.V. I was able to talk to my mom for one of the first times since I've been in Korea. We were both excited to talk with each other except I felt bad because she wanted me to get her details about this situation, but I was over the situation and didn't explain it well. :( I'm sure she'll get an earful when I get back.

Later in the day, we looked up to see one of the nurses standing outside the door again. We stared out the window trying to figure out what she had brought for us this time. Up popped a bag with a familiar symbol on it...it was the golden arches of McDonalds. We all screamed and ran to the sliding door. She put the bag down for us and we waited impatiently for our chance to grab the bag. We savored every last bite of our food

When one of the nurses (not Monica) came in for the final check up for the day she suprised us with nice notes written individually for each of us. She gave us each little pink sticky notes....

"To. Christine
Good luck to you
From. National Mokp'o
Hospital Nurse
Lee Hye-young"

She also had us read a note that apoligized that things have been awkward between us since she doesn't speak English. We all said things like, "Awwww, don't be sorry!" And thanked her for giving us our sweet notes. We quickly whipped out a thank you note for her and Danielle gave her a package of Jellie Bellies. Then we spent the next hour writing thank you notes for Monica using my Twistables Colored Pencils.

Our last night ended quietly with each of us doing our own activity. Laura read a book, Danielle and I typed our blogs, and Megan wrote in her journal. In the background, we listened to a reality T.V. show...ah home. We had random conversations of what we will do when we get back to camp. I told the girls I would miss them when we parted ways. I'd grown comfortable with being around them. They truly are a wonderful group of girls to be stuck in a hospital room with. We are all extremely different people who somehow managed to get along perfectly together for five looooong days.

Tomorrow, we are leaving the hospital after lunch and we are VERY excited.

Stay tuned....