Chinese Medical Examination

In order to live in the Peoples Republic of China you must have an "official" medical examination. Well, our idea of a health check is nothing like that of those in China.

First, we walked up to the building hardly believing that this was where we were going for a medical exam. There was a pile of smashed up concrete and garbage as we went through the front doors. We waited a long while to pile into the crowded elevator. The wait was long because of a number or things.....
1) we were nervous about what to expect
2) it smelled of something indescribable (as many places in China do)
3) it was crowded
4) people were staring at us (as usual)

When we finally entered the waiting room, thankfully Intel had hired a company to help us with paperwork and to help translate for us. We waited for a number of "tests" that we needed to go through. We were ushered into these test rooms past others who were patiently waiting. No wonder people hate Americans.

Blood test: This woman was good.....it is by far the fastest blood draw I have ever had. This lady was very efficient, although she didn't have clean gloves (just ignore the blood splatters from the previous person). I was happy to see that she did have clean needles, she disposed of them after each person.

Heart, blood pressure: basically this is to see if you have a pulse and if your blood pressure is OK. If your blood pressure is high, I don't think it matters much, they reminded Damon to take his medicine.

The eye exam: A women sitting there with a chart asks (in Mandarin) for me to cover one eye, which I was able to figure out. I pointed my hand the direction the chart symbols and changed to the other eye. The interesting thing about this exam is.....they don't look to see if you have contacts, and if you have glasses (as my friend Geneal does) they have you take them off, try it, then put them on, then try it again. Apparently it doesn't really matter either way.

The EKG test: after standing in line behind a VERY flimsy curtain, lay down on a dirty table. the woman asks me to lift up my shirt, and I didn't do it far enough.....bra too. She puts these suction cups on my chest. They looked like they were about 50 years old. Then these cables that looked like jumper cables for a car were attached to my wrists and ankles. She turned on some machine and I think I felt some electrical currant, but I'm not sure. I guess I passed the test.

Ultrasound: I wish we did have a curtain for this one, even a VERY flimsy one would have been better than nothing! I laid down on a table (again, dirty) and pulled up my shirt. A woman squirts cold greasy lotion on my stomach, moves the ultrasound around my abdomen. I think she was looking for......actually I am not sure what she was looking for. I had to take a deep breath, I guess she couldn't see one of my organs very clearly. What a weird experience. She gave me a small paper towel that I was to clean the lotion off with, but most of it got on my shirt as I was trying to sit up and pull my shirt down and get off the table as fast as possible.

Urine test: This was by far the worst. The bathrooms were smelly, dirty and let me say....not western style toilets. When I was getting ready to go into the bathroom Geneal gave me a look that said "good luck" and her words of encouragement were, "I have NO words....." They gave me a cup to pee into and a test tube. This cup given to me was smaller than a dixie cup, more like the cups that I measure my kids' Tylenol. There was no counter or anything, so after I filled up my cup, I set it down to pull up my pants. Good thing I did this order correctly, otherwise I would have been pulling up my pants with one hand while holding the test tube of pee with the other. YUCK!

I am glad this is something that I don't need to ever do again. This is a test for people over 18 years of age. whew! I would hate to see Nicole and Trejan go through this!