A Rice Cake a Day...

could never keep the doctor away. At least, not if you're an employee of the Japanese public school system. Teachers have to get check-ups once a year. But once a year is not "365 days," it's once every calendar year. So even though I've been here for only 10 months, yesterday I had my 2nd medical check-up, because the law requires "one check-up a year." If you are easily grossed out, don't read this post. But frankly, the point of my blog is to report life in Japan. Frankly. And I cannot STAND their medical system.

First of all, thank goodness I am under 30. Because of Japan's extremely high rate of stomach cancer (due to high levels of salt and stress), everyone over 30 has to drink a disgusting liquid and have their stomachs either x-rayed or probed with a camera. The doctors come to your place of work to perform the exams. Can you imagine a strange doctor sticking a tube all the way down into your stomach at your workplace once a year just for a check-up? And it's required by law.

Luckily I got to skip that part. However, I still had to fill out all the forms and "endure" other tests, such as a rather rough EKG, blood tests by glove-less nurses (which really freaks me out), vision tests, and yep, the dreaded cup-in-the-bathroom test. Now. In plain English the medical form says "All of your health information is confidential. We never show this information to a 3rd party." Somehow, I found this hard to believe. The form goes on to ask you all kinds of detailed questions, such as how often you eat, what times of day you eat, how many times you use the bathroom, etc. Invasive as it feels, the paper is the easy part.

The difficult part is that you are not supposed to consume ANYTHING after 8pm the night before your exam. No food, no water, no chewing gum, nothing. Yet 15 hours later you're expected to pee into a cup. Guess what? It didn't work. My body doesn't hold liquid for 15 hours so by the time my check-up rolled around the nurses were not happy. In fact they acted personally disappointed in me. Too bad! Next time, let me drink! I briefly wondered if they would ask me to return another day to complete my tests. Then I laughed it off.

As usual, the nurse drawing my blood had trouble finding a vein. As usual, it bruised rather badly. Today, my school's nurse came up with 2 English teachers (because she only speaks Japanese) to inquire about my arm. Evidently the doctors had called my school nurse to inform her of my condition. I complied and rolled up my sleeve, which resulted in much cooing and ooing and awwing over my red and purple inner elbow. They told me to ice it. I thought it was nice that the blood nurse had been concerned about me. But then, the nurse changed the subject in Japanese. My heart started to beat faster because I knew what was coming. In my pereferal vision I saw my two vice-principals, 2 older male teachers, and a younger female teacher, all within 5 feet of my desk. All of these people could hear the nurse saying in clear, loud Japanese that I had not completed the urine test so please return another day to pee in the cup. I was mortified. It was obvious to me that everyone was listening. Really, they had no choice. I thought about how the form promised no one else would know anything, and how half my co-workers now knew that I did not pee in a cup, that I had little veins, that I had trouble with a rude nurse, that I bruise easily. I am still mortified. I looked at my school nurse and the embarrassed English teachers who were translating, and I said with a smile, "They have my blood. I am not going back." This led to a "discussion," or a polite argument, for the next 10 minutes, about how I really should spend my own transportation money to complete a test I just had 8 months ago in a country I will leave in 2. And, they had my blood. As far as I was concerned, that was good enough. Some foreigners become disenchanted with Japan because of the pressure and expectation to always do what you're told, just like everyone else, without even the spark of a question in your mind or an inkling of desire to go against the grain. In some cases I can tolerate this well. But damnit, I decide when I pee. And that is THAT.