Advertisement
Published: July 15th 2008
After much anticipation, I am pleased to share Mark's first blog entry! I especially love the first part...the part about me. but please know I did NOT author, edit or even encourage these kind words.
Enjoy!
Suzanne
From Mark:
I am honored to be asked by Suzanne to be a guest writer on her blog. However, I must admit I am a little nervous. Suzanne is an excellent and humorous writer and it will be hard to maintain the high standard she has set.
I arrived back in Shanghai last Thursday for a 3 or 4 week stay. There are a number of things I need to accomplish while I am in the country. First of all, I am beginning the rather lengthy process of obtaining visas for our family. It begins with a long health exam. Just getting an appointment scheduled for the exam is very tricky. It took several weeks to get an appointment and my return trip was based on the date of my health exam. On the day of the exam it was raining extremely hard. Rainy days are unpleasant because it is especially hard to get a taxi when it is raining. It is difficult to estimate travel times because you don’t know how long it will take to get a taxi or long it will take to get to your destination because traffic is usually awful when it rains. One of the researchers in our Shanghai office was nice enough to stand in the rain and flag down a taxi for me. I did not know that he had gone outside to do this. I was very grateful, but I felt badly because he was soaked when he came back in.
The health exam was very interesting. After the taxi dropped me off about 45 minutes outside of downtown Shanghai, I tried to find where I was supposed to go. After going into several wrong buildings, I finally found the right building. Unfortunately, by this time I was soaked. There were dozens of people from around the world who arrived at the same time for their appointments. The process was similar to getting your driver’s license in the US, but a little more organized and efficient. I began by visiting four booths. The first was for reviewing the required documents I had to bring with me and to give me an additional application to complete. The second was to have my picture taken (more about this later). The third was to review my application. The fourth was the cashier to take my $100 exam fee.
I followed the line of people into a locker room where I was told to strip from my waist up. I was given typical hospital gowns to wear. Then I was off to the X-ray room where we were given a chest X-ray. I was then told to go around the hall. I ended up back in the locker room and began to put my clothes back on. Once of the nurses saw me, looked at my paperwork, and then laughed. She told me that I had only completed 1 of 9 stations. She then walked me to the next station. The next station was the blood collection room. I was a little skeptical about having Chinese needles injected into my body. However, I was very relieved by their concern for safety. The nurse put on new gloves for each patient. New disposable needles were used for each patient. They were the same as we use in the US, with safety tips so the nurse does not get accidentally pricked. Also, I was given a sheet of bar code stickers with my name that I handed to the attendant at each station. Also, I saw why I had my picture taken earlier. At each station, they would pull up my file of the computer and my picture would show up in order to keep all of the records straight.
At the next station, I was met by an old doctor wearing sandals. He grabbed my hand gently and pulled me into his office. I was a little nervous, but this was just a blood pressure and pulse station. At the next station, I was told to lie on a bed. At that point, an old woman attached a number of large electrical wires to different parts of my body. The wires were connected to a big metal box. I felt a little like a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. However, this was just an EKG station and I did not feel a thing. I then went to several more stations. One was a room where I was given an eye exam. I think I passed the eye exam, but they also checked for color blindness. Unfortunately, I am partially color blind so I was a little nervous. I would hate to not get my visa because I sometimes have trouble distinguishing between red and green. When she showed me the pictures, I had trouble seeing the numbers, but I gave it my best shot. I don’t know if she understood me correctly, but I think she gave me a passing grade. The final station was also quite interesting. It was the ultrasound exam room. It reminded me of the last time I was in an ultrasound room with Suzanne to see images of our daughter Emily. I was told to lie down on my back, and the gel was applied to my stomach. I am pretty sure I am not pregnant, but I guess I won’t know for sure until the blood test comes back next week.
After the last station, I changed back into my clothes that were still damp. I then went back into the rain to find a taxi to take me back to the office.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.239s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 12; qc: 54; dbt: 0.1522s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jules
non-member comment
Great post!
Nice to hear about your China adventures, Mark. Very entertaining read. But don't forget - there was a pregnant man on Oprah recently! ;-)