Oh, Crap! TMI?

The international insurance provides a yearly physical, free of charge, for preventative care. I have been hesitant to do it, mostly because in general I don't ever go to the doctor. However, Abe and I decided to take advantage of it this year.

Let me start by warning that this post may be sharing a bit of Too Much Information. If there are any future prospective employers reading this one day, please keep in mind two things: 1) This is a personal blog and I would never share something like this professionally, and 2) At least I have the ability to laugh at myself, even when things are a bit 'crappy.' That being said, here goes nothin'...

The process begins with a cute little gift bag arriving via courier. Inside is an envelope with lots of instructions for the process. In particular there is great detail regarding the prep for the colonoscopy. You probably see where I'm going with this. 

Three days before the exam we were instructed to cut back fiber from our diet. The information was a little different, depending where you were reading it; we received a few texts describing the process and there was info in the gift bag. I erred on the side of caution because I heard that a few people didn't do it quite right and their colonoscopy was unreadable. If I was going to go through this I wanted to make sure it was not all for naught! Consequently I only drank chicken broth all day. It was actually filling and I was not hungry. But that didn't put a lot of substance in my intestines.

I was feeling performance anxiety when it came time to gather my poo sample. 💩  All day long I didn't think I was going to be able to go, but by evening I believed I could get 'er done. In my mind I was going to have to go potty in a bowl and roll up to the hospital with my turd in hand. 😰  It was not that way at all. There was a strip of paper that had stickies on each end to drape across the bowl to catch the specimen. That was a relief. Sort of. When I finally calmed my bowels and assured them it was OK to go potty on a strip, the ding dong turd slipped right off the back of the paper into the water! 😱  I panicked because that was all I had. The directions specifically said don't use it if it had been in water (and I really wasn't going to dig in the water to retrieve it anyway). I was reminded of my three-year-old Zekers who once stated, "Sometimes you gotta push REAL HARD."  I repositioned my body over the paper and gave it the ole college try again. Success! The babiest turd came out, but it was enough. I stuck this little stick-type thing in the sample, twirled it, and placed it back onto the tube. Whew!

But then there was the dilemma of that paper catcher thingy. The septic system here is not that strong; sometimes public places have you leave your toilet paper in a trash can beside the toilet. I didn't want to flush paper and have it clog the system. When we translated the directions, it was very vague, like 'drop the water' or something very ambiguous. I consulted Abe and we decided to flush it. Thankfully it went down and the toilet didn't back up.

That monkey was off my back. But next began the diuretic. 

The directions said to drink 250ml every 15 minutes, four times. They also said to drink it cold so it was more palatable. They also said if you vomit to stop drinking it. I was thinking it must taste absolutely awful, especially if it made some people vomit. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. It was not necessarily tasty, but I could tolerate it. I chugged the first 250mls in 7 minutes. I waited until the appropriate 15 minute window and repeated the process three more times, drinking entire thing. Then I drank the required 500ml of water. 

Even though I hadn't eaten all day, my tummy was uncomfortably full. Even a bit nauseous. Twenty minutes after I finished drinking, the poo started coming. Immediately it was liquid. Kind of amazing that it worked so quickly. But then the vomit came. As all the liquid I just consumed was violently coming out of my mouth I asked myself why on God's green earth did I do this to myself ON PURPOSE. 

The vomit stopped. The poo did not, but I was able to sleep for a few hours at a time. I started the process again at 4:40am. I slowed down on the drink though. I only finished 750ml instead of the requested 1000. No vomit this time--woo hoo! The poo started again. The final potty before we left at 6:00am was a clear liquid. So the procedure would probably be successful. Yay! On the 45-minute drive there we only stopped at one rest stop. Once we arrived I had to hit the toilet pronto, but I made it with no unwanted explosions. That had been weighing pretty heavily on my mind, so that was a huge relief.

The whole process of a total physical was streamlined. It was pretty amazing. Upon check-in I was given a cell phone. I had 16 tests to do. Each room had a number and a little scanner outside. I started at room one. Once I scanned my little phone, my patient number appeared on the monitor at the door displaying where I was in line. I would get my test done and go to the next room. There was minimal waiting. The first 10 stops were women-only. There were simple things like an eye test, hearing test, weight and height, etc. There were other things like x-rays. When they did the pelvic, breast and thyroid ultrasounds, I was able to watch it on a screen. I think it's cool to watch what's going on inside my body.

Then I was sent to an area with mixed company. I totally felt like I was in Squid Game. People were wandering around the halls with our 'uniforms' on. The girls wore pink and the men wore blue. It was just missing the eery Squid Game music.When I got to the colonoscopy/endoscopy station, I was given new bottoms to change into. They were pants with a little flap at the back. As I walked out into the room filled with both men and women, "Please don't let my butt cheeks be exposed. Please don't let my butt cheeks be exposed," was all that was going through my head as I quickly found a seat in the waiting room and sat down, just in case my butt was showing.

We were called back and given a saline bag while several of us waited in a little side room.

As soon as a private room was open I was called in. Then I went in and layed on my side, and a thing was put in my mouth for the endoscopy. I looked at my watch. 10:40. The next conscious moment  I woke up in a recovery room filled with at least 20 beds. Men and women, all mixed.

 The nurses must have been watching because someone came over to me as soon as I was awake. I was sent to the changing room to get out of my flappy pants. You can tell I was still a little bit out of it.

I found a few pics like this where I was trying to take a picture but nothing was in the photo.
And that was it.

I had 16 stations to go to. I started at 7:30 and was totally done by 11:30. I'm telling you, it ran like a well-oiled machine. Pretty amazing that you can get all that done in one place, in just a few hours. The US really needs to up our game when it comes to medicine.

The next week we did it all over again, but this time for Abe. We were told we couldn't drive ourself home after sedation, so I went with him. I was given a special pass for a designated waiting room. There were four massage chairs, so I went straight to the chair. They were those really big ones that envelope your whole body.

I slipped off my boots and jumped in. I was poking every button on the remote trying to get it to power on; even though the words were in Korean you wouldn't think it would be that hard to figure out. Finally the power came on and the chair began sliding forward. It kept going and going. About the time I thought it might topple over forward, it quit moving and the massage started. After 30 minutes of a total body massage, from head to toe, it just stopped. The thing is, the chair did not move back to the original starting position. I was stuck with my feet up, in a reclined position, with the chair still moved totally forward. So I began pushing rando buttons again. I got the feet to move down, but when I tried to climb out of the chair it would move them up again. After a couple minutes I figured out how to keep the feet down, but the chair was still all the way forward.

Here's the thing: I had left my boots in front of the chair. The chair completely ran them over and they were stuck! One shoe was near the edge so I was able to retrieve it. However, the second one was being eaten by the chair. I was frantically trying to get it out of the belly of the chair without drawing attention to myself. After a hot minute of struggling, I was victorious over the chair. The boot was mine to keep.

About an hour later I went in for round two, but I made sure to leave my shoes way over to the edge where the chair could not reach them.

This is part of the fun of living in a foreign country. Even the mundane becomes an adventure and you're never quite sure what you are going to get. You either come out the victor, or you laugh at yourself. Often it's both, even when the situation is crappy.

 [December 2]

Update: The results arrived via courier that required a signature. I was not home when Abe's arrived and they left a sticker on the door that did not translate well but I knew it was the post office. I first went to the apartment office just in case the envelope was left there, but they were closed for lunch. I went to the nearest post office, but they were closed for lunch, as well. Later in the afternoon I went back to the post office. We could communicate enough that I learned I was at the wrong post office. I pulled open my map app and she found it on there for me. The other post office looked for it for a hot minute before informing me that it was left at the apartment. I came home and went to the office, only to be informed that they do not accept mail. What?! Next I went to my Korean-American neighbor who is super sweet. She called the post office. Even though the hours said they were open until 6:00 and it was 5:30, the message said they were closed for the day. Because store hours only apply when they feel like being there. My neighbor was kind enough to call the apartment office for me. They told her they did not accept mail, but maybe the guard office, located right outside their building, might have received it. Now why the heck would they have not told me that?? Granted, we were using Google Translate to communicate, but you would have thought that might have been worth mentioning when I said the post office told me they left it here. Anyway, I went back down to the guard shack and they found it. Victory!