Medical Adventures

I am feeling much better. I am a bit tired today - at the end of a very busy day, but am probably back at about 85-90% energy, which is a great feeling. I even had plenty of energy to slide down the slide with the little kids and play basketball with the older kids at Saramoldaeva Orphanage.

Well, I thought I would share some funny stories related to my medical experiences over the last week or so. Not only have I had to have medical treatment, but Beth's cat came home from an outside adventure with a big hole in her side. In the last week, I have been to the diagnostic clinic (blood drawn and urine sample), the vet (3 times), and the doctor for me. I will start with one of those stories today and then have a few more in the days to come.

Diagnostic Center - Always a New Adventure

When you first enter the diagnostic center, you have to ask the people there who is last. Instead of standing in a line about 20 deep, each person just knows the couple people before and after them. This allows everyone to wander around until their time draws near. When it was our turn, we filled out documents explaining what tests I wanted. Then, we went to the cashier to pay. I have done this before, so none of this was unexpected. I even knew to bring my own urine with me (in a jar of my choice) for a urine sample.

When they told me that both of my tests were on the second floor part of me wanted to cry. That meant that the blood test I had to do was my least favorite EVER blood test. I bravely gave my urine away (taking the lid off and waiting for them to paste a number on the outside of my pickle jar).

Once finished, I headed into a room with one lady, a rack of test tubes, some slides, and a sterile sharp object (a mix between an exacto knife and a needle). She asked me for my finger, which I hesitantly held out. After rubbing it a bit to get the circulation flowing and cleaning the extra used slide that she had, she opened the sterile sharp object and jabbed it half way through my finger. She then took a drop of blood, put it on a slide, and used another slide (which had been cleaned since the last use) to drag the blood across the original slide. Then, she went to work trying to draw 1/4 of a test tube of blood out of my finger. This included more rubbing and squeezing as well as dragging my finger across the open part of the test tube in order to squeeze blood out of my finger and into the test tube. I handle pain pretty well, but I just wanted to yell at her to stop. I would much rather have someone stick a needle in my vein and remove a pint of blood than 1/4 of a test tube from my finger.

After about 30 seconds (which seemed like 30 minutes) we were done and she gave me a piece of cotton to stop the bleeding. I left the clinic and returned later in the afternoon for my results.

This was the first of many different medical adventures this week. I hope you enjoyed them and will continue the story tomorrow.