The Probing

Over labor day weekend, instead of grilling out in the backyard or doing something else fun, Adam and I had to go to Shanghai for a medical exam which is one of the many hoops you have to jump through in order to live in China. The funny thing is, they don't make you get an exam just to visit China, even though you could spread the same amount of diseases by visiting as you could by living there. So anyway, my weekend consisted of flying to Shanghai on Friday (arriving there Saturday afternoon), sleeping for the rest of Saturday, hanging out in the hotel room/sleeping all of Sunday, getting the medical exam Monday morning, then flying back home Monday afternoon. Adam was sick the entire time so there was no desire to do anything touristy.

The medical exam was very interesting. Luckily, someone from the relocation company was there to help us with the paperwork. But when it came to the actual exam, we were on our own. After waiting in a waiting room for a short time, we handed our paperwork to a lady at a computer and since I hadn't filled out the "occupation" line, she asked me if I was going to be working. Since I haven't signed anything with the company yet, I said no, so she told me to put "housewife" in that spot. And I laughed to myself because the term is so outdated I don't think I've ever actually used it in real life, except to refer to the Real Housewife shows. I pictured myself as a "Real Housewife of Huainan".... Haha! First, we got weighed, and they told us to take off our shirts and put a robe on. That was the only part of the exam that we did together. After that, we both were bounced around from room to room but we were never in the same room at the same time. My first room was the electrocardiogram. But I didn't know it at the time because the way they hooked me up seemed more like something out of Frankenstein than the way they do it in the US. Instead of using the sticky pads, they used clamps like this:

There was one on both elbows and one on my left ankle. Then they stuck 4 small suction cups under my left boob. I wouldn't be surprised if my graph looked abnormal because I kind of felt like I was on an alien spaceship getting strange tests done on me. But it was over in like 2 seconds and then she sent me to another room. My next room was the eye and ear guy. I could tell he knew only the amount of English he needed to know to do his job. He points to a chart on the desk that has an E, a backwards E, an E on its side, then an E on its side upside down and he goes "Right, Left, Down, Up". And I'm like, "what?" And he repeated it and I got it, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that information. Then he pointed to a chart on the wall that had all E's on it, in different orientations. It was just like an American eye chart only instead of different letters, it was just E's. I guess that makes it easier for them than having all the letters. So anyways, my right eye sucks. Maybe it was just out of focus at the wrong time because I feel like I see fine, but I had to guess what he was pointing to. Then I passed the colorblindness test of course. And my ears were fine. I actually don't know the results of any of the tests that were done. I'm just guessing my ears were fine. My next room was the blood drawing room! I was anticipating having to get poked several times because my veins are small. But it was probably only twice. I didn't look. Then I had to go to the ultrasound room. I'm not sure what it's for. Maybe they were looking for tumors, because Adam had to do it too. It was scary because the lady was really focusing on this one particular spot, digging it into my ribs as if she saw something. And when it was over, she didn't give me anything to wipe the goo off with. So I left for the chest x-ray all gooey. The chest x-ray is to search for tuberculosis. And I believe those were all the tests we had to do. At the end, I used my robe to wipe the goo off, then we were on our merry way. The whole thing took less than an hour. And there was no actual probing of orifices or anything.

On a completely different note, I was watching "The Young and the Restless" with my mother-in-law and this little girl is in the hospital with Lukemia and on her hospital bed, is a printed serasoft throw from Berkshire Blanket that I helped create! Here's the picture I took from the TV:

And here's the picture from the Bed Bath and Beyond website (it's the one on the left in the middle):

Yay!