Life of Hardin Vol. III, No. 2

Open a Vein and Say, “Ah”

I dislike going to the doctor for a variety of reasons, chief among them my suspicion that they are kin to vampires. Whatever my ailment, they stick me and take blood. But in order for me to stay in Paraguay, I had to be given an exam by a Paraguayan doctor. My health report from a doctor in the States wouldn’t do. Neither would my statement that I am healthier than they can stand. So I went to the doctor.

The picture in my mind was of a cinder block examining room where I would be given a tetanus shot with a rusty needle and bled with leeches. However, the hospital I visited was brand new. It was even devoid of that distinct hospital smell of old sickness.

First the doctor grilled me about my health history. I translated by his facial expressions. If he frowned, I replied, “No, never." If he pursed his lips and cocked his head I replied, “I exercise and eat green vegetables." The questions ended and he handed me orders for three lab tests. I read them, in Spanish, and recognized one word: "sangre." Blood. I saw fangs lengthen past his lips.

The receptionist said the lab could do the chest x-ray and EKG that night. The blood work would have to wait until morning. I imagined this was so they could convene the coven.

A short, dark-haired nurse with thick glasses and a scowl took me into the EKG room. She threw a sentence at me in Spanish so fast that I knew she wanted to raise my blood pressure and ruin my test results. I didn't move. She scowled some more, then spoke even faster and motioned for me to take my shirt off.

I pulled it off. The instant I lay on the table, she jumped me with four battery cables. Two pinned my ankles. The other two held my wrists. Then she slammed six little blue balls with cold silver suction cups all over my pectoral region. I wondered if there wasn't a better way to study my heart than to stop it with electric current and then suck it out through my chest.

The machine whirred and spewed its readout. The nurse read a few sheets, scowled, wadded them up, and tossed them on the floor. This went on for five minutes. Read, scowl, toss. I asked, "¿Voy a morir?" which means, "Am I going to die?"

She spat the word, "No," scowled harder, and folded up the last few sheets of readout. Then she scowled me from the room with a wave of her arm.

Before I could check my ankles for burns, a male nurse hustled me to the x-ray room. "Take off your shirt," he said in Spanish. I didn't understand and told him so. He made the hand motion of pulling off his shirt. He took two x-rays of my chest, then came back in the room and said I should have breathed in. He took two new shots and left.

He returned moments later. “Take off your shirt,” he said. He took the same shots a third time, then snuck out the door. Five minutes later another guy came in. He had, "Take your shirt off," on his tongue when he saw I was bare-chested. My shirt smoldered in a small pile on the floor. He placed me against the x-ray table and measured with a tape just where to aim the camera.

The next morning I returned for the blood test. A nurse walked up to me, pulled me in a room, and stuck me, shirt on and all. I was all done in fifteen minutes.

I saw the doctor again the next week. He read my results and said I was so healthy he couldn't stand it, which is what I'd been telling them all along.