Josie picks me up at 7:00 in the morning to take me to get a physical at a hospital in Nanjing. (It's part of the process for my residency permit application) I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything for 12 hours beforehand, (In America, we can at least drink water) so as soon as I get in the car, I fall asleep. Throughout the trip I am awoken for brief moments when Josie slams on the breaks to avoid accidents. Josie is a nice woman, but she's not the world's greatest driver. At on point on the drive over, she almost misses her exit, so she stops in the middle of the freeway, and slowly veers towards the exit as the entire freeway blares their horns.
We finally get to the hospital and it is filled with international students from all over the world. We take a number, 47. They are currently on 22. I wait in a line while Josie goes and sits down. After about 45 minutes in line, some one who works at the hospital moves into another line when they notice I don't have any paperwork. I go to that line, fill out some paperwork, and then am moved to a third line. I text Josie to tell me what's going on, she gets upset because I'm doing things wrong and has me go back to my first line, even though we have already been here for over an hour and by now they are on number 49. After waiting ten minutes in line, Josie realizes I was right and moves me back to the third line. This is when we notice that my name on the form is Smith Riley Henderson.
So we go back to the second line, which is now fairly empty. We explain to the man at the desk that my name is actually Riley Henderson Smith, not Smith Riley Henderson. The man says it's fine, which Josie does not agree with. The man huff and puffs, looks at his phone, talks to his co-workers, and stares blankly at the computer screen while Josie and I wait. Finally, after about another 25 minutes, he draws a line with an arrow from the front of Smith to the end of Henderson. Josie is apparently satisfied with this. I don't know why we spent all this time here, I could have drawn that line myself.
By this point, we are the last people in the hospital. We walk right up to the front of a new fourth line, pay my deposit and walk me up to the doctors stations. Upstairs, there are multiple doctors stations with multiple lines in front. Josie wants me to get in the blood line first, so she can give me something to eat, but another doctor first sends me over to be weighed and measured. They weigh and measure me in the metric system, so I don't really pay attention to my numbers. At first, I think my height is my weight and my weight is my height. I didn't think I weighed 186 pounds, but no, I'm 186 centimeters. I have no idea what the weight number or even form of measurement.
Then I go to donate blood. In front of me in line is a pink haired Russian woman who screams bloody murder when they draw her blood. As I sit down to get my blood taken, I stick my arm out and the doctor swats it away, like my hand is a fly. She writes a few things on a piece of paper, then grabs my wrist, yanks my arm forward and roughly rubs my arm in iodine and wraps it. I hear the pink-haired Russian saying behind me, "If I don't get some food in me right now, I'm going to fucking black-out. I fucking hate this hospital." The doctor slips the needle into my arm with perfect grace. It's one of the least noticeable blood drawings I have ever had.
Josie is obviously very worried about me eating and quickly hands me a baggie with some food in it.
"Eat," she insists.
I open the bag and find some smooshy white bread (which tastes like nothing), a little cartoon of soy milk (kinda gross), and two hard boiled eggs. I don't think of a picky eater, but other than canned fish the only thing I truly can't stomach is hard boiled eggs. Plus I still have lingering memories of my egg fart ice cream from the night before. I eat the bread, take a sip of the the soy milk, take a bite of a hard boiled egg, gag, and then throw the rest away. I try to be very subtle and sneaky about it, so Josie doesn't get offended.
I then get an ultra sound (very gooey), an eye test (my right eye is a little worse than my left), a blood pressure test, an ekg (I hear the pink-haired Russian say what test is this and I say an ekg. After this, she only speaks in Russian the rest of the time in the hospital,) and an x-ray.
After the final test, we walk back down to the reception area, get one final stamp, and that's it, just a quick 4 and 1/2 hours in the hospital and we are done.
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