Alright, so I got back from the clinic, none the worse for wear, and it looks like I will live to fight another day.

Once I got there it didn’t take long to get into the process, and I got shuttled from room to room, station to station for several hours.

I went in with a list of things I wanted to explore, and nearly all of them were addressed, and then some.   My doctor is a short Indian woman, but as a medical professional I pressed forward and explained all my assorted symptoms, including the problem with the vas deferens.  And then, since I was already bare, she declared it was appropriate to do one of those “OH! You’re over 50” exams.

Hey, guess what?   Enlarged prostate!   Ugh.

And then when she was done violating my nether regions, I asked for a towel with which to remove evidence of my violation.  The witnessing nurse handed me a tissue — A tissue, singular — so I asked for some paper towels.

She said, “these are rough.”

I said, ‘it’s okay, I wash after I poop, I can take ‘rough’.”  I utterly shredded the wad of paper towels, and I still feel sort of “squishy”.

Got an EKG, 2 chest x-rays, pneumonia vaccine, tetanus shot, an Rx for nitroglycerine, 3 Rx for COPD (1 for daily, 2 for ‘as needed’), plus 1 for Prozac.  Yayy.   But NOTHING for b.p., which I thought was odd, but my paperwork says my goal is to achieve b.p. of 140/90, and it was only 134/89, so no new b.p. Rx, BUT there’s a recommendation for me to go learn self-management tools at americanheart.org (American Heart Association).

And I am scheduled for a bunch of other things at 4 different locations around down.

The whole visit cost me $10, plus $32.00 for the assortment of medications.  Not bad.  But it sure did take a long time, or so it seemed.

I will say I was impressed with the fact that things flowed with efficiency.  EVERY bit of my patient record was installed into the computer patient record.  And at each station the requested DIFFERENT confirmation info:  birth date, address, last name, etc., to ensure I was the intended patient.  And at sign-in for many of the stations there was a palm-reading device, to photograph my palm for additional patient verification.  They seemed to have all the latest medical technology, as well; no run-down facilities.