Friday 11 July 2008

I don't have kidney disease

Last Tuesday I went for my medical, which every teacher at ECC has to undertake. Wednesday this week, I went to collect my results. Upon arriving, I was ushered away up the stairs and told there was a problem. The nurse knew no further explanatory English; I waited for the doctor. A few minutes later I went in to see the doctor, and the first thing he said was "something something something hangul?" I shook my head negatively. The second thing he said, after a pause, was "ah, you have-uh kidneydisease-uh." And smiled. It turns out I had to have more tests at a cost of 50000 won. 25 quid. Had no money on me. Had to go home.

Because I was so long at the hospital my manager rang them to find out what was happening. I ascertained more from her than I did at the hospital: I probably didn't have kidneydisease-uh - my urine sample showed a slightly higher than usual creatinine levels, probably just an oxymoronic normal abnormality, which meant I needed to go back.

Anyway, I did and I am OK. I knew that anyway, I mean I feel fine. I was pretty certain that if I had renal failure I'd have noticed. I may know the reason my results were a bit skewed, too. When I went to have my test last Tuesday, I didn't, as requested, eat or drink anything for 12 hours. Anything. Not even water. Food, booze, fair enough, but water? I assumed this was a Korean thing, didn't complain. Blitzed my eye exam, dental check, hearing test, BMI, X-ray and blood, but got around to the sample stage, and there was nothing doing. Countless little disposable paper pockets (no cups here) of water, and forty five minutes, later, still no dice. I managed to squeeze as much as I could into the cups, the pressure of doing so blatently led to my cultivating a small amount of kidney disease, but just at that particular moment. So says Dr Michael-Teacher.

Anyway, that's disgusting. Next time I'll talk about noodles or something.

No comments: