Hospital

After being here a few months, I'm well on my way to getting an official work permit. This includes a trip to the local hospital and physical examination including a VDRL test. I thought for a bit that VDRL would test for lots of things because that's what the name sounds like, but apparently it's just for syphilis. I was told in the van after touching down in Bangkok that this was a required test to pass for employment and I tried to explain to my employers that from now on they should tell people that kind of thing before they fly to the other side of the world and start work. Now that I have officially been declared 'unreactive' to the test, I can voice an opinion about it. The only thing worse than being told I had syphilis and subsequently fired from a job would be if I were complaining about the test on the internet.

I have also been officially measured. This has actually come up a lot recently so I'm not just bragging. I am 187 cm tall and 70 .5 kg massive. Blood pressure is 118 / 64 and the nice lady remarked on how low my pulse is. It's written as 60, but I thought the machine was even lower. Actually, the date on the form says its the year 2554, so who knows.

A few things stuck out as memorable. I had to sit and wait in four different places, which is not surprising; I've been with my dogbitten friend a couple of times and her experiences were similar. At one point I sat next to a sign that said X ray 1 in big letters on the top, then there was a sign that said Pregnancy, no X ray on the bottom. I made it a point to watch the technician actually take the needle out of its package for my blood test, and in this land of wrapping everything at least twice in plastic, I would have been thoroughly surprised otherwise. He did a good job, but I have really easy veins to hit, and he didn't wear gloves. The really surprising thing to me is when I saw the nurse's shoes. First, it was surprising that I noticed women's shoes, and secondly, they were wearing heels. They are all about the image here in Thailand.