Girlfriend is getting impatient with my long stay in Asia for medical treatment; need advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

I lost my job a few months ago and have been spending time abroad in Taiwan since. My girlfriend (who lives in Texas) has been okay until now, but her patience is getting frayed.

The first few months were spent doing online MBA classwork and also getting cheap healthcare (for dental work, TMS, etc.) I also contracted Covid in January, had it tougher than many people, but eventually pulled through.

At first, I’d told her I’d return in February. She agreed. Then it had to be changed to March; she agreed; then changed to April. This was due to ongoing medical stuff that needed repetitive treatment (healthcare in Taiwan, even without insurance, is still an order of magnitude cheaper than much healthcare in America, and I am staying at my father’s apartment.)

Now, though, I recently found out the source of my ongoing neck pain and stiffness: I have compressed spine vertebrae and a Taipei doctor says it will need 3 months of traction therapy. (The first time I got it checked out, two months ago, another doctor shrugged and said my neck pain only needed ibuprofen, but last week, the new doctor says it’s much more serious than that.)

Again, this traction therapy would be 10x cheaper in Taiwan than in America. But my girlfriend’s patience is nearing the limit now. She had expected I’d be back to the USA in April - after having endured my return-date changes to Feb, Mar and April) - and if I do all the neck therapy this may keep me abroad in Asia all the way til July.

I don’t have a whole lot of money in savings, so being able to save, say, $6,000, by doing it abroad instead of in America would be very significant. But I’ve already changed return dates multiple times on her and she is getting exasperated, so any advice would be appreciated.

2

Ultimately you have to decide if your relationship is worth the $6,000, since that seems to be the only thing keeping you abroad. It’s not clear how close you are (how much of this you have communicated to her) whether it would be possible for you to work and study simultaneously stateside. Six plus months is a long time to wait, and it sounds like the only one who benefits from your time abroad is you.

~Max

3

I am amazed that someone you call a girlfriend is more concerned about—what??— than your actual health. Or is there some reason why it would supposedly be to your advantage to get treated in Texas?

My advice is to listen to the doctors; of course there are doctors and there are doctors, so you have to find one that knows what they are doing.

4

Pro, gets to be with girlfriend & vice versa.
Con, has to pay more for treatment. Probably has to pay more in rent too, but the rent situation is unclear (is he currently sharing rent with girlfriend in Texas? Is he currently paying rent to uncle in Taiwan?).

~Max

5

Bring her over there?

6

We’ve talked about that. However, she is doing a PhD, and being a student from China, travel on a visa in or out of Taiwan can get iffy. If she does come, it might only be for a week or a few but still better than nothing. But yes, it’s an option, although we are both cash-strapped.

7

When did you get to Taiwan?

8

Beginning of Dec-2022.

9

Cervical Neck Traction Device Over Door for Home Use, Portable Neck Stretcher Hammock for Neck Pain Relief, Physical Therapy AIDS for Neck Decompressor. Amazon.com

Ask you doctor about traction devices you can use at home.

10

If I’ve got this right - you will be gone for 7-8 months by the time you get back. I agree with Max - you need to decide if the relationship is worth the extra cost to get treated in the US.

Why did you go abroad to begin with? Was it for the inexpensive healthcare that you thought would be done in a month or two ? To visit your father ? To qualify for residency? The reasons don’t really matter except so far as they influenced her expectations - I might agree to wait a month while someone who considers me a “girlfriend” visits his father , possibly for two while he catches up on medical care. But there’s a limit to how long I will wait and for what reason - saving $6K is significant but it’s not like you need an air ambulance to get back to the US.

11

I know nothing about this, but I hope you have done your due diligence, by getting a second opinion (at least) and/or seriously reading up on whether this is actually needed and helpful.

12

I originally went back for a vacation, to get a residency permit, visiting father, yes. There was medical stuff as well, such as TMS and dental stuff, but that wasn’t the primary reason. The neck pain issue started cropping up around February (I’d long had the bad habit of popping or twisting my neck, but it never led to anything significant until now) and the first doctor I saw just aw-shucks’d it and told me to take ibuprofen, in February. When the pain only got worse, I saw the second doctor, last week, and he was considerably more alarmed and did X-rays and showed that the gaps in my neck vertebrae were considerably more compressed than ought to be, and told me I needed 3 months of traction treatment.

Yes, right now I’m trying to make a money vs. patience assessment. The plane tickets, if they’re going to be changed, need to be changed soon, too.

@ Thudlow Boink, I may do just that, get a third doctor to check it out.

13

Are you a Taiwan or US citizen (really asking). I thought you could only stay in Taiwan for 90-days as a US citizen unless you get a visa to stay longer.

14

US citizen, but with Taiwanese residency permit (via my parents’ Taiwanese citizenship.) So I’m not a true citizen, but I can stay indefinitely. At any rate, I went to South Korea last month so it would have reset the 90-day period even if I were not.

15

Before you’d left for Taiwan, was this GF somebody where the two of you were/are already planning being permanent together? Or is she “just” a GF? Or something in between, perhaps one or both of you sauntering towards maybe eventually talking about going permanent? Etc., for all the variations on that spectrum.

The point of this question is that what I’d give up to placate a mere GF-of-the-month is pretty small compared to what I’d give up for somebody where we’d already mutually decided on forging a permanent connection. And conversely, what I could realistically and morally expect a mere GF to endure is much less than I’d expect from a fiancé or equivalent.

I/we here don’t need you to talk about this aspect if you’d rather not, but I suggest you need to be thinking about this aspect.

Admittedly good GFs don’t grow on trees, and especially not for middle-aged people such as yourself. But if your relationship isn’t that far developed yet, it may already be fatally torpedoed. You coming home early untreated, struggling to pay US prices for treatment, and you / she split up over over the already baked-in consequences of this long separation would really be the worst-case scenario.

Lots of marriages break up over 12 month enforced absences as in common in e.g. the military or some itinerant jobs. Fatally wounding a lesser relationship in fewer months is kinda par for the course.

16

Yeah, that’s kind of where I come to as well.

At this point, she’s got to be in some kind of groove, since you’ve been gone a while, and really, what is a few more months at this point, if you’ll save $6000 and be in better health when you come back.

17

He didn’t say he needs to stay for his health, he says he needs to stay to save money on treatment. And i would expect anyone you consider a girlfriend to care about getting to spend time with you.

I also agree with @LSLGuy about how serious the relationship is being relevant. How long she might reasonably wait is related to how much longer she reasonably expects to be with you after you return.

But mostly, i think the op needs a second opinion, and needs to consider the options medically. Is the treatment something that can be done at home? Is it just the monitoring that’s going to be expensive? Are there other funding options? Is traction totally even indicated? “One doctor recommended i stay here for months” seems like a weak reason, honestly. Especially if that doctor stands to profit from it. I’d definitely want a second opinion before embarking on this treatment, even ignoring the issues with the girlfriend.

18

Seems a bit uncharitable to me. The “what??” seems fairly clearly to be the fact that a vacation/family trip turned into a minimum 7 month journey for a series of unrelated medical treatments, up to and including 3 months of traction therapy. It is hard for me to imagine not feeling a little misled and disregarded in my partner’s life under those circumstances.

It’s certainly possible that there was ongoing communication about each of these things and this really has been a reasonable sequence of events, and the girlfriend should not be feeling skipped out on, but I don’t see anything in the story so far that compels that conclusion.

19

I don’t mean any disrespect, but I just find this a bit odd. Speaking only for me, having a job is really, really important to me for financial reasons. If I were to lose my job, I would have one priority, and that is to find another job. And then life would resume as normal after securing gainful employment, including visiting family members and whatnot. YMMV, of course.

20

IIRC, the OP started a thread here a few months ago, on the heels of losing his job (which he’d been at for a number of years), looking for advice on what sort of job/career he might pursue next, as he seemed to be a bit lost as to what to do.