I'll take two urine samples to go

What I thought was a simple cold has turned into the Honk Kong, Swine or perhaps, Bird flu. Whatever it is, I felt like the grim reaper was knocking on my door.  I couldn't stop coughing and was in so much pain I could barely walk. When  R2 got home from work he decided doctor time was in order so we grabbed a cab and went to the Raffles walk-in clinic. When the nurses saw me they recommended I should be in Emergency.  Probably wanted to make certain I didn't have some Canadian strain of the flu and pass it along to all five million people living here.  I won't go into the gory details, but what gory details I will share is how they do blood samples in Singapore - torture, I tell you, torture.

The service was record-breaking; no waiting for your doctor to arrive and they methodically move to treat the patient in a lighting fast system.  The doc determined I had an infection so he wanted to do all the tests; blood, urine and x-rays. The nurse took over at this point, and her efficiency was frightening. She came into the room to take my blood and this is when the fun started.  I can only tell you what I felt because I couldn't look at her, or the blood.  She stuck the needle into my hand, instead of the usual crook of your elbow. This is the point I saw stars, but to make it so much worse, she kept telling me to squeeze my hand into a fist while she "milked" my arm and squeezed my fist into a hard ball.  She reefed on my fingers so hard, I thought the needle was going to pop out.  Poor R2 was sitting watching and when I finally opened my eyes, he had a look of horror on his green face.  This "milking" of my hand went on for about 3 minutes.  She then put in a tiny IV and started me on some quick acting meds to kill the pain.

If you think this is the end of the story, it isn't.  She came back and told me she didn't get enough blood and had to use the other arm.  I believe this is when I passed out. Luckily she did this one in the elbow crook and it was painless. 

They must do everything in twos because they needed me to get up two times to pee in the little vial, and when I was wheeled to radiation for my x-rays, the 13-year old man/child needed to do produce two x-rays as well.

All in all, the service was quicker and better than anything I have experienced, anywhere in Canada.  The hospital was clean, orderly and very high-tech. I just think they need to brush up on their blood collecting skills.

I noticed signs all over for botox and lypo. I hope that is the next thing I do at Raffles Hospital because they are getting no more blood from me.