Now,
if
you know me, you'll know that I hate going to the doctor.
Unfortunately, in order to teach in Russia, you have to get a medical
book and have a million doctors sign off and say that you're healthy
enough to work with children. I can't really complain about that - it
makes (sense). But the entire process is horrible and leaves a lot of
room for improvement.
To start off, you need to get an official medical booklet. To get this,
you bring some passport photos, your passport, and 300 rubles to some
old women in a random building in a random courtyard. I did this first
thing on Monday and was sent away because I didn't have a translation
of my passport. So today, I had my registration and that seemed to
work, because I was then sent to a very nice woman who gave me my
booklet.
Then came the hard part. Thankfully, one of the girls that works at the
school, Lena, came and endured everything with me. I am beyond grateful
for her help. I may have to bake her cookies. Anyway, after taking some
money out (which was an ordeal itself because four different ATMs
didn't work), we went to the medical center. The receptionist gave me a
bunch of papers, one of which had a list of all fifteen things I had to
have signed off. And to add an extra little twist, the offices all
closed for the day in only an hour and fifteen minutes. Oh, Russia.
The first room I went to - the general physician I think - was
misleading. The doctor was nice and spoke a bit of English. There was a
pleasant old man hanging out who spoke excellent English and we had a
little conversation. Then after some confusion about a really long
line, I was whisked off to the first real doctor, where I had to suffer
through an extremely unpleasant and rude woman asking me questions I
didn't understand and then yelling at me for not bringing my
translator. Thankfully, though, my friend rescued me and the whole
thing was over in a matter of minutes.
I went back to the confusing line again, which turned out to be the
lab. I went in and the woman in the room very cheerfully took out the
mini razorblade she needed to cut my finger open. I'm hardly
exaggerating. It was a thin piece of metal that was around an eighth of
an inch wide. The woman distracted me and then made fun of me for
jumping when she stabbed my finger. I promise I'm not just being a
baby. I've had my finger pricked for little blood tests before and
that's not bad at all. This was a stabbing. After which, she squeezed
my finger and continued to collect blood in mini vials for about five
minutes. Sadly, that was the most pleasant experience of my day.
After a quick checkup at the dentist, I was done at the medical center
until next week. So I headed over to the hospital to get my x-ray. But
the x-ray machines are all broken at the hospital, so I have to do that
next week too. But once I've got that and all my lab results are back,
I get to go to the therapist, who is the one that signs off on the
whole booklet.
Somehow all of that was done by two, so I was able to head home early
for the day. I went home, showered, and curled up in my newly beautiful
bed to do some reading and TV watching. But mostly I'm telling you that
because I went to Ikea yesterday and bought new stuff for my apartment
and I wanted a reason to post this photo of my new bedroom.
