Having last week attended a full medical for my emigration visa, yes I’m hopefully leaving the country, but don’t worry my blogs will still wing their way to you by the wonders of the internet, I have been quite preoccupied with making sure that my blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol etc etc were all as close to perfect as they could be.
After all, this is my and the racing snakes future we’re talking about. It’s been a long process, having applied in 2003 we’re older, wiser, certainly fitter and healthier than we’ve been in years. It’s marvellous what a bit of incentive can do, and leaving the rain for snow and mountains is the right sort of incentive believe me.
So the day of the medical dawned. We opted to walk the 5 miles from the train station to the medical (important note #1: steady exercise before a medical is good for stress and reducing blood pressure) and a lovely day it was too. Hot, sunny and we were walking faster than the cars, buses and taxis were moving (this was central London after all).
Now I have a problem with toilet issues, I find that I’m very embarrassed about this bodily function, to the extent that even as a child I wouldn’t use public toilets. Got over that bit now of course, but the thought of having to produce urine on demand was causing me more than a little worry.
That issue over, reasonably humiliation free, then x-rays. Now if you’ve ever had a chest x-ray you’ll remember the contorted position that you’re put in and told not to move from. They then tell you to take a very deep breath, but don’t move. Being told after a practice run that I’d have to do better than that was a bit blunt, but only prolonged the agony until a good enough inhalation was provided.
Next 30 minutes of prodding and poking, including tickling my feet ensued. I’m not convinced about the feet tickling, the racing snake didn’t get any. Being told that the veins in my arms were pretty pathetic, but that he’d have a ‘stab’ at getting some blood out sort of worried me, but with blood pressure at 120/80 (important note #2: 120/80 is pretty damn perfect :-), and I’m 41), the anti-stressing walk beforehand had obviously done its bit.
So medical over, the racing snake also completed, then a nice walk back, by now through the very hot (30° ) streets of London, and home to a rather large congratulatory ice cream with fingers crossed.
