Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Horrors of Medical Examination

WARNING: This post is about things you wouldn't normally discuss while eating...or normally discuss at all . If you get the picture. Proceed and skip at your own accord. If not, well, one word...poop.


Undergoing a medical examination is not really a pain in the ass especially if you allot some time to it. It's just a general procedure that a person gets to do once in a blue moon, unless that person is job hopping. You do the normal registration, vital statistics measurement, eye exam, xray exam, blood sampling, and if your company requires you to strip down and expose your ass to the hapless doctor, then all of it could be done in a few hours time and hopefully in one clean sweep. I've always been trained to welcome needles ever since I was a kid, so it wasn't something horrendous for me. I am perfectly fine with getting my vital stats although I prefer that they immediately write it down than broadcast it to the nurse at the end of the hall, who happens to write down the records. No one needs to see you stuffed, with exact numbers stamped in your forehead. I'm even a-okay with the whole xray examination procedure, even if a "straight, fairly good looking guy" asks about your menstrual cycle and eventually requests to take your bra off. Heck, I'm totally fine to strip down for an intimate check up with a female doctor, although I can't say if the doctor was to be male. It never happened to me ever, and hopefully they've got good female to male ratio in these clinics. Otherwise, I would probably freak out as well.

So, everything else (for me) falls in the pleasant category except for two things. The Stool and Urine Sample. Stool and Urine, no matter how biological or natural it is, go straight to the toilet. I don't think about it and I don't intend to manage it in any way. It's quite uncomfortable and particularly annoying when you're trying to store your own, excuse the term, "poop" into some container. Of course before you can actually store it, you'd have to scoop, nip (whatever term you'd want) it first. After the deed is done, I'd usually feel pity. I'd immediately feel sorry for the container and stool apparatus no matter how lifeless they are. It's just plain disgusting, unnaturally done but very necessary, which makes it such a drag.

But stool is not as bad as urine. In stool, there's an ounce of preparation and the movement is often controlled, unless of course one is suffering from LBM, but getting a urine sample takes art and spatial calculation. The worst thing about it is, they have so many requirements in getting the urine. You'd have to wait a couple of seconds after the first flow and they'd ask you to fill the whole plastic bottle/cup. It's especially harder for women because the "passageway/source" of urine is less helpful than male species'. Expect the worst here; and by worst it means requiring you to bring lots of tissues, an alcogel or if you're diligent, some disposable gloves.

I have to give it up to those medical techs who have to face these specimens every single day. They search for meaningful findings in undesired human wastes. It requires special skills, knowledge, tough stomach and high tolerance for well...wastes of others. The visuals, smells and the dirt in it.

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