Health Check

Fast on the heels of my 40th birthday was the company sponsored health check-up. These days Americans are enthusiastic about socialized medicine, but I wonder how they would feel if their regular doctor visits turned into something more similar to the physical for joining the cross-country team in junior high.

Around the auditorium, temporary cubicles had been sent up. We all shuffled in and before we had to all get naked together to turn our heads and cough, we had to get our height and weight checked. Some effort was made to maintain privacy despite the tight quarters. The nurse wrote my height and weight on a piece of paper. She showed it to me and asked, "Is that OK?" I looked at 183 cm and 75 kg and asked, "If I say no, can you change it?" The great thing is that at those figures, I am considered borderline obese in Japan. The last time I went to K-mart to buy underwear in the States, the only size that fit was the Small.

My favorite part of the health check is always the eye check. In Japan they have an eye chart that uses circles that get gradually smaller going to the bottom of the chart. One area of the circle is open and the patient is supposed to say which side is open -- top, bottom, right or left. The first time I saw it, the right side was open, so when asked if I could see it, I quickly answered that it was the letter 'C'. I was lucky I ever got my driver's license. After I took the test, one of the computer science teachers sat down. I think he was from Bangladesh and I am guessing it was his first time to see this kind of test. The nurse asked him in Japanese if he could read number 12, about half way down the chart. The Bangladeshi teacher answered in English, "twelve". This continued two or three times until the nurse switched to English and explained how the test was supposed to work.

We had our blood pressure taken in groups of five. Mine was 110 / 60. I don't really know what that means, but the nurse told me that was perfect. The guy sitting next to me was 190 / 110 (so much for privacy) and the nurse was backing away like he might blow at any second and splatter the walls like an abattoir.

When we did finally get naked, it was like junior high. Varying degrees of body hair -- a lot of hairy backs --and man boobs on display. I was shocked when the nerdy electrical engineer that I serve with on a couple of committees took off his shirt. He was ripped like a pro wrestler. No body hair either. He probably waxes. I didn't want to stare, guys are weird about that, but the guy had a great body.

Finally we got our 90 seconds apiece with the doctor. Doctors are always a tricky handle and the cram school survivor who has abjured lucrative private practice to give company health checks probably has a few skeletons (not just for research purposes) in the closet. The doctor in the curtain covered cubicle sat with his bloodshot eyes and five o'clock shadow, sipping something that smelled suspiciously like isopropyl. His eyes lit up when I came in. A foreigner, a diversion. I wanted to avoid the English lesson. One of the first times I had a health check in Japan, the doctor listened to my lungs with the stethoscope and pronounced, "Your lungs are almost perfect." I thought I had a tumor or tuberculosis. Today's doctor, rallied himself for a stab at English but the best he could manage was, "SAIKIN, HAI TOKA, ICHOU TOKA, NO MONDAI DE HOSPITAL E ITTA KOTO ARIMASUKA?" I wondered where that 'hospital' had come from. I told him no and he checked my lungs. He asked if I had had any health problems recently. I told him that I had hurt my back the other day and he answered, "SORE HA II DESUNE. Well that's OK then. Thank you. Next." I imagine that if I had told him that it hurt when I pee and that I had a nasty yellow mucus dripping from my eyes, his answer would have been the same.

I know there are a lot of Americans who would welcome this level of heath care. But I with Google you can pretty much self-diagnose. If we could only self medicate -- you know cut out the doctor's prescriptions and the pharmacists and just buy the level of medication we want, it might be better off than trying to fix the whole health care thing.