Health Check

Every year, I have to go for the required government health check. It usually takes half an hour; it’s degrading, but mostly painless. This was the first year doing it without anyone’s help.

We wake up to a dreary, rainy morning and drive the 45 minutes to the bigger hospital in Seosan. Enter the hospital through the underground parking garage. The basement houses a GS 25 convenient store and an overpriced kimbap restaurant. One thing to mention about Asia, there aren’t any cafeterias in hospitals, so all able-bodied patients go outside of the hospital for food. That being said, I still flinch every time I see patients of all ages sitting in wheel chairs with IVs attached scarfing down instant ramen noodles and a coke at the 7 Eleven.

                                                                                                                                 

Once on the main floor, nothing is in English or our level of Korean. The information desk is empty, so I attempt to find out if I pay first and where the health check office is. No one speaks English. Call the boss (from the phone they had lent us for such an occasion), but no answer, it’s too early. Finally get the translator on the phone to work properly, but even that isn’t coherent enough. They keep asking “where have sick?” Fasting, along with the early morning, is wearing on the nerves and I’m on the verge of mania.

Finally, someone seems to understand and says, “two floor,” while holding up three fingers. Go up to the 3^rd floor to be directed to another area. Then go through the whole rigmarole again before someone understands the translation and gets a form. That takes 45 minutes in all. We sit there, nearly passing out, before they call me. First, they test the blood pressure, which is surprisingly normal, and then they check for color blindness (pinks and browns are getting harder to distinguish these days). I’m made to wait as some older lady comes demanding attention. I stand, in the middle of the room, waiting for a nurse.

She comes to whisk me off to check my chest size (why?), height, and weight. A serious explanation of how the hearing test works lasts several minutes, and I’m a bit apprehensive as it starts. But I hear the sound in the left ear and then the right ear and let it be known correctly. Then it is over—it was a three-second test. I struggle to distinguish the English letters on the eye chart as my head is spinning from blinking florescent lights, caffeine deprivation, and low blood sugar. I don’t even think of the fact that Koreans cannot even pronounce most of the letters on the chart.

Now it is time for the blood test. This is always the worst part. Usually, one can find my vein and the nurse rolls the needle around, or randomly pokes until she finds something, only to go for my hand. This time, I try to suggest that the vein in my hand is better, but the tourniquet goes on, the phlebotomist flicks my arm a couple of times and sticks the needle in—no pain. I sit there in a mixture of hunger and disbelief, forgetting the usual need to pass out.

Out comes the needle and I’m given an alcohol-soaked gauze and taken to the bathroom to give a urine sample. I am mid squat, thanking my lucky stars that I’m not  in danger of passing out in the squat toilet, when blood starts dripping from the gauze. I quickly finish my task, wrap some toilet paper around my arm and duck out of the stall to run into the next patient, who turns green looking at my arm. I wash up, grab some towels, and am bustled away to the x-ray lab before I can ask for a bandage, as the other patient notifies the phlebotomist that I’m gushing blood. Suddenly I’m surrounded by patients and nurses as they attempt to put a tiny bandage on the bloody arm, each spouting advice in Korean, while an older man sitting next to me starts doing those reverse arm presses off of the chair. My wound is clotting by the time they get my arm clean and the bandage on. I look around and notice I am the only patient in there not doing some sort of “exercise.”

The x-ray technician calls my name and asks me to take off my bra and put my shirt back on again. I come out in my tank top, but she makes me put on my sweater too. The x-ray takes two seconds, and I have to get dressed. The nurse checks my arm and with a satisfactory nod, leads me passed more reverse arm presses, to the doctor’s office. The doctor starts speaking Korean to me and I say, “no.” He curses in Korean and sits in silence. I look at him, “I’m hungry. May I go?”

He sighs and asks, “Where are you from?”  “America.”

“South America?”  “USA”   “Ah, USA, ok, ok, ok. North.” I nod.

“You ummmmm surgery?”  “No.” silence while he marks something on the chart.

Tobacco?” “No.” “Drinking?” “No” “Driving?” “Yes?” Salience as he thinks about how to say the next thing in English. He shakes his head and marks things down on the chart, “Nice to meet you, bye bye, see you next time.” He chants like a school boy. “Umm yeah, nice to meet you.”

We pay and eat kimbap in the hospital basement.