VISA - Chinese Medical... You want me to what now?

And just when I thought there were inefficiencies in China… I got my medical done…

Yes, literally, the most efficient medical I’ve ever had done. There was no waiting in a waiting room. No waiting for one procedure, then heading to another building for the next, across the city for EKG and then back to where you started to collect your results.

But shall we begin at the beginning?

So, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before but I’ve been offered, and accepted, a 12 month contract here in Tangshan. The salary is MUCH improved to the internship allowance, so I should be able to save, and also see much more of China, and hopefully Tibet (a different country depending on your interpretation) and Mongolia.

As part of the rather extensive VISA process, you need to get a thorough medical done in house (aka in China… I don’t know if they don’t trust the one I got in Australia, but who am I to query) Having now had said ‘medical’ I concede its far more extensive than any I’ve had in Australia or otherwise.

Lilly, the Chinese / English teacher go-to-girl, collected me at 8am on Thursday, we had intended to go on the previous Tuesday, however there was a RED ALERT meaning hazardess pollution levels and the Government advised it best to remain in doors as much as possible, infact they closed down some schools completely.

Unfortunately on the Tuesday I had had to go for a quick grocery shop and experienced first hand how terrible this level of pollution was. I could hardly breathe through my mask, and when I pulled it down to catch my breath after climbing the stairs to the bus platform, I was met with the smell of ash, an immediate sting in my throat, and over the hour of my commute to the shop and back, a nasty headache reminiscent of the end of a two day migraine.

Funny how much you miss oxygen when you don’t have it.

This was a particularly bad bout, the pollution storm lasted a few days and made international news. Not something I look forward to continuing to experience during my time here, however in a way I’m glad I’m not ignorant to this any longer. It makes you realise that anything we hope to do to impact the climate in a positive way is something we need to do on a global level.

So, collected by the lovely Lilly, she bravely drove her vehicle (I figure anyone that drives a vehicle in a city in China is brave… you have a moment by moment potentiality of getting in a crash or driving over a j-walker… I used to struggle missing the rubbing bins on bin day!) to the secret hospital.

I say secret hospital because at no point did I see it. Even when I was walking INTO it... I did not see it. Imagine, if you will, a post-Chernobyl building, that off-sick-green seventies paint peeling from the walls, an ash tray by the waiting seats, a small window with a busy-type woman looking frustrated at your appearance and annoyed at any associated action required.

Lilly sent me off to the ‘waiting space’ which was infact an Ikea looking table and chairs with a pen in the centre of the table. I’ve only been in hospitals in Australia and the UK, but idiotically I thought there’d been a memo sent throughout the world about how a waiting room was to be set up, with that dreadful droning music, the semi comfortable seats and magazines in every corner. Memo was not received in China.

After a time Lilly asked I pop back for a quick photo op (ie the hospital needed to take a photo of me to compare with the photo’s I’d had taken a week ago, with the photo’s that had been taken when applying for my original visa back in Australia – talk about thorough!), then off we were for some testing of the blood.

One room, needless needle (ie te pin part of the needle attached to a tube, which would then be attached to a vile for the collection of blood). Without any conversation I was pricked and blood plucked.

The doctor then gave Lilly an empty vile (lidless) donned with a barcode and also what appeared to be a very very very small plastic measuring cup…

Lilly then explained to me that I needed to pop into the toilets (all squat no pedestal) and pee into the measuring cup. I then needed to pour the pee from the measuring cup into the vial and leav the vile in the egg-cup looking vile holder for later collection.

You what now?

First of all, I’d been fasting since midnight…

Second of all this was a boy/girl toilet…

Third of all it was a squat toilet…

FINALLY… there were three male doctors having a good ole chat outside the loo!

I looked at Lilly. Lilly looked at me. I took the cups, and like a man on a mission, took a deep breath and entered the loos. Lilly had kindly agreed to hold the toilet door to give me some privacy.

Stage fright? Who knew it could happen to a woman.

Squatted in the loos, while holding my nose, I tried with all my mite to fill the measuring cup… I heaved and hooed and wriggled. I looked left and right, I thought of the ocean and I thought of England… no luck at all.

I was aware of Lilly waiting… I knew there were men outside… I felt the expectation of the cup calling me… could I get to the black rim?

I wanted to pee… I did! But could I? No…

Finally, a brief flow, I manoeuvred the cup with little skill and even less accuracy, but hooray! Hurrah! I caught some of the golden stuff.

With hope, still squatting, attempting to keep my balance, I poured the rare catch in to the vile…

NOT ENOUGH! I was half way to the black line I’d been told I needed to get to. How was this possible? How dare my bladder not obey me! So back to the squat I went and pushed and strained and then tried to meditate while knowing Lilly was waiting for me and how on earth could I fill the vile and and and…

I was overcome… I had been beaten.

I placed the half filed vile in its new home, washed my hands and knocked on the door to indicate for Lilly to open…

“Ok?” she said, I imagine having seen my face

“Umm… I couldn’t fill it up!” I whispered urgently

“Oh, you only need to fill to the black line” she said, smiling…

“No..” I said, cringing… “I didt get to the black line… I couldn’t… well… I just” and I moved my hands to indicate tere had been a problem in the general activity of flowingness

He blushed a little, looked at me quizzickly and then rushed back to the doctors room,

After a few moments she shouted down the hall, past the other doctors and staff,

“Did you get half way?”

“Yes”… I responded, cringing with the reality of the situation

Lilly dashed back, “Oh good! That’s ok then. Half is good”

We moved on to the next test.

Over what can have only been twenty minutes I had been blood tested, eye tested, height and weight tested, x-rayed and ultra-sounded. Each test was set up in a separate room in the same building, so you simply slipped from one place to another, no que, no waiting, just done, dusted...move on.

I was impressed, regardless of the peeling paint and instruments that I'm sure had appeared in some of the horror films I'd watched from the late 60's, it was efficient, and I can only hope... effective... but then... there was a the EKG

The EKG...

It's amazing how trusting you are of doctors, or activities in hospitals. When they tell you to lay down, you do. When they say lift that, move that, turn this way, cough here... this will only sting a little... we believe it all. In terms of it will only sting a little - IT ALWAYS BLOODY HURTS! Why do we believe them?

So when we entered the EKG room, Lilly instructed, at the doctors request, that I lay down on the bed and so I did.

To set the scene of the EKG room, imagine Return to Oz when 'Dorothy' has been sent to the loony in because she believes in Oz. She lays there, her head strapped to the bed, and her arms, legs and chest attached by metal and leather to strange beeping machines...

Alternatively, imagine any Mental Health institute from any horror or thriller film you've seen and you will be standing in my shoes.

Less then a second later the severe looking operator was pulling up my trouser leg (I had intended to shave my legs the night before but the overwhelming desire to watch the latest episode of SALEM overtook me). She spurted some kind of brown-red ointment on my ankle then clamped a cold metal... well, clamp... on it. This was attached to a machine by way of wires and leather strapping.

Next was my wrist, again with the ointment, a clamp and strap.

The operator indicated I should lift my shift, I imagined so she could pop something on my abdomen... next minute, she'd flattened her hand against my abdomen and swiped up, in kungfu style, toward my neck, flipping my bra and exposing my lady parts.

I was shocked... so shocked I could not move. I was in a MARVEL Comic Book... the best thing that could happen is that I would come out as a super hero with some extraordinary powers, worst? That this EKG was infact a devise for electrocuting in-polite Westerners!

The operator, quick as you like, then proceeded to pop strange little suctioning devises in the middle of my chest and down and across my lady bits, some bits more sensitive than others. I wont say it wasnt painful and in hindsite... WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING? How did I not jump up and say, NO... this is not what we do.... where is your STESTHESCOPE?

I did none of these things. Like being at a dentist, I dealt with the pain in the hopes that it would be over soon. I hoped that my colleague, Lilly, wasnt across the room seeing the parts of me I preferred to keep in their own little cuppular home, out of the light and prying eyes at the same time.

I lay there while I heard the beep and sweep of my EKG being recorded on paper. Had I been strangely transported to a LIFETIME US movie from the 1990's?

Suddenly, the Operator came back toward me. She unpinned my ankle from the machine, my wrist was once more free and then... 

So you'd think she'd take off the suckers from my lady bits softly, with a bit of consideration, given that she was a female... this was not the case.

With a James Bond type karate cut sweep, she floppopopodddd (that's the sound the items made when the were removed from sucking my skin!) the suckers, leaving me in shock... a bit of denial, and over all wonder.

"Lilly", I said, "WHAT HAPPENED?"

"What?" said Lilly

"She... she put sucky things on my BITS!"

Lilly laughed, "Oh", she said, "I'm sorry about that" (I dont think she was or is!)

"WOW!" Said Lilly, changing the subject, "It's SNOWING"

And that is the best subject change I've ever know, cos it was snowing and when its snowing, what else really matters?