French Medical Examination

As part of the visa process we have to go through a medical physical with a French doctor. It so happens that our appointment is scheduled for the same day as one of the infamous French labor strikes. This means no trains, no planes and limited taxis. Our appointment is for 1:30 PM and we are a good 45 minutes from the location of the appointment. To further complicate the situation I have an all day meeting in our main office (fortunately my boss understands the situation and gave me the option to call in).

As life has it we are able to get a taxi in a reasonable time frame, so we check out and start on the journey. The taxi driver drops off in this neighborhood that would remind most of us of old Olean. We have plenty of time, so we go for a lunch in the French version of Hastas. Everyone goes there from this small town (~15 minutes outside of Paris). We have a good meal, Jill had steak and I had rabbit (no, it doesn't taste like chicken - it's a white meat similar to pork, but milder flavor.

When we get done with a long lunch (we had 1.5 hours to kill), Jill has to use the bathroom. She asks the owner/bartender/server where to go. He politely shows her to the room and turns on the light. When Jill returns to the table I can tell something has happened. When she went into the bathroom there was no toilet. In the center of the ceramic floor there were two imprints of where to place your feet and in the middle was a hole to pee in. For those that know Jill, this was not going to happen! Needless to say we left lunch with full bladders and went to the office for our physicals.

When we arrive at the office there are ~30 people waiting in ,line for the same thing. Lesson #1 when the French say appointment, they mean cattle call. The doors open and we proceed in. By the way we have our suitcases with us because we are going to a hotel near the airport. So there we are, slepping our bags into this crowded office area. We hand in our forms and we are put in this room where no one greets you and you wonder what the heck is going on.

Away we go, they start calling us to different offices to take height, weight and blood sample. Jill's nurse speaks broken English. I don't know if mine does because all he does is grunts and points. They move us a number of rooms and we pull our luggage to each. With the preliminaries done, they put us in small rooms and tell us to take our shirts off. They need a frontal chest X-Ray. Of course we don't know what they are telling us to do. I know I moved twice - she was telling me to breath in, who knew??? Jill had to redo also. When she went in the second time they opened some other doors and other nurses came in to see Jill topless for the x-Ray. I can't write how mad / upset she was. All I know we're not allowed to do this again!

Finally we individually meet with the doctors. Fortunately both speak English. Bad news is even the French doctor noticed I gained weight this summer (thanks to the lake house). They give us a clean bill of health, a copy of the x-rays and a document to prove we were there. Funny, I don't think Jill or I will need a document to remember this one.