For a couple of years, once a year we do a medical check-up. Since it has been over a year by now, yesterday we decided to make an appointment in the Puerto at the private clinic our new health insurer recommends.
Before we could blink an eye our blood pressure was measured and the doctor was filling in a form to draw our blood and take in our urine. If we had been sober and could pee, we had been ready within half an hour. But the nurse gave us both a plastic bag with a cup in it and told us to fill the cups with morning urine only, to be sober the next morning and go to the clinic in the Mazarrrón. As a token of her appreciation for our visit to the clinic and because it was our first visit, she gave us some very unhealthy chocolate bonbons (hence the picture).
So this morning we went sober to the clinic here in the village, handed in our well-filled urine cups, and were taken in a cabinet to get our blood samples. When I was a child I always fainted when I had my regular injections. Nobody ever explained to me why this was. Was it out of fear of pain for the needle? Was it because they used ether to disinfect the injection spot? Was it because I very easily suffer from motion sickness? If I lie on my back on the beach, hear the sea and look up at the clouds passing by in the air, I get very sick.
And yes, this morning I felt my ‘stingy needle sickness’ set in again. This was very strange because when our blood samples were taken in the Netherlands I had no trouble with it at all. Was it because the nurse was young? No way. No matter how young she was, she was very experienced and performed her duties with great care and precision.
Moreover, in 2005 and 2006 I was an interim manager in a hospital in Rotterdam for one year and a half and I enjoyed the medical environment. Never any problems. I can watch medical procedures performed on others as well as on myself with great interest. I used to watch complicated surgical procedures on television. No problems there. So I am a bit puzzled. Suggestions are welcome.
^tvo
It must have been the heat. In Holland we either went in the fall or in the spring. Both cold seasons – at least in Holland 🙂