I just wrapped up my second day of medical tests and day two went faster than day one. Not necessarily easier or better, just faster. Upon arrival, I met my handler from yesterday who handed my paperwork to a woman who simply said, “Come” and walked off. It took me well over an hour to figure out that she was my handler for today.
Among other tests, I got a treadmill EKG done, which I was a little concerned about. Not necessarily that they would find anything wrong, just whether or not I could do cardio long enough for them to get the results. Fortunately, it wasn’t as challenging as I had expected and I was done within 10 minutes.
Next was an eye exam. I was taken to the lab, the tech blew puffs of air in my eyes, gave me some dilating drops and sent me away. My handler took me back to the executive checkup building and told me to have a seat. I sat there while she talked to the receptionist for a minute and left. I sat there, waiting for her to come back. As I sat there, an attendant brought me some food. No context, no nothing, just a tray of food. It wasn’t great; imagine hospital food but made with vegetarian Indian dishes and you’re probably imagining roughly what I had. After about half an hour my handler came back and told me that, now that my eyes were properly dilated, we could continue the eye exam. Apparently I had been taken to the executive building for lunch and a break. That would have been nice to know.
We went back to the eye exam room where I looked into an eyepiece and they measured my vision. I was then told that they couldn’t continue the eye exam because they had dilated my eyes. I would need to come back on Monday to do the rest of the exam. Why they dilated my eyes before they did the tests that didn’t need dilation, I have no idea.
My handler told me that this was all for today and told me to go home. I asked if she could get me a car to take me to the hotel, and she told me to call an Uber. Fortunately, Uber in India is the same app as in the states, so calling the Uber was easy. The problem came when I went outside to meet the car and couldn’t read any of the license plates because my eyes were dilated and the sun was so bright. Eventually, I was able to make out a plate that was the right one, and I was taken back to the hotel.
I decided to hang out at the hotel for the next hour or two as my eyes recovered before heading out into the city to explore a bit. After about an hour, my original handler texted to ask where I was, so I gave him an update. I mentioned that we did not yet pick up the things from the pharmacy, and I would like to start the allergy medications sooner rather than later, to see if they work. He suggested that I come back to the hospital and offered to send a car. I decided that I liked him better than the woman who had been my handler that morning.
When I got back to the hospital, I met my handler who then walked me down to the pharmacy to pick up the allergy medications and a flu shot. I was told that they were out of the flu shot but they had something different that would work as well, so I shrugged and said sure why not. (I really should have gotten the name of whatever the hell they were giving me) Rather than giving me the shot there, the pharmacist gave me the medication for the shot and my handler and I went wandering the hospital to another room to find someone to administer the shot.
I rolled up my sleeve and the tech shook his head and pointed at the bed. My handler said that it was an intramuscular shot. I told him that I had plenty of muscle on my shoulder. He laughed and said no, this one goes in the butt. So I pulled down my pants and climbed on the bed. The tech pulled down my underwear, gave me the shot, pulled up my underwear and tapped me on the shoulder to let me know I was done. As we were leaving, he said something to my handler. My handler told me that the tech had reminded him that this needed to be billed. I asked if he was serious the handler said hang on let me check. He went back in and had a short conversation with the guy. He then stuck his head out and asked me if I had any cash. I said that I had some. He said give me a hundred rupees. I gave him a 100 rupee bill, he handed it off to the tech, and we left. Apparently billing was no longer going to be an issue. I paid a whopping $1 to have a tech stick a needle in my ass. For some reason I feel like that was a good deal.
Heading back to the hotel with dilated eyes, a bag full of drugs, and a sore backside, it struck me: if this was day two, I could only imagine what creative billing adventures day three had in store.
