November 4, 2009
Medical Exam Complete
This morning I completed my medical exam in Toronto at Dr. Seiden’s office. There are only 4 doctors offices in all of Canada that are authorized to do the exams needed for the visa application. I personally think that’s ridiculous, but at least it was only 2 hrs away. Problem is that if I wanted to be completed in a reasonable length of time, I basically had to be there when doors opened, which was slightly before 6:30am. 
I did not want to have to leave London at 4am to drive there, so I stayed overnight in a hotel about 4 blocks away. Was back from the exam in time to get some free breakfast and a nap before driving home. lol So at least that part was cool.
The medical consisted of a chest x-ray, blood taken, basic physical exam, blood pressure, $275 fee, plus $50 for courier for results. sigh…. etc. Nothing special really, but I had to see four different people to accomplish it all. SIX people if you include the receptionist and secretary. Whatever happened to the days of getting a tooth pulled and a hair cut at the same location by the same person? Our society is really too complicated these days. Really.
I also had to get all my immunizations updated, which was sort of a chore in itself. Thankfully I’d already done a bunch of them this summer, and I’m glad I did. I also had to get some blood work taken to find out if I needed the chicken pox vaccine. I did this a couple wks ago. It consisted of waiting around in a walk in clinic for 2 hours to see a Dr to get paperwork to go to the blood lab next door (thank god it was in the same building, I had no idea when I first went in there) to get blood taken, to wait a week to get results, to go back to the clinic to pick up said results declaring that I indeed never had chicken pox as a child and don’t have immunization against it since there was no vaccine when I was a kid. SIGH. So I had to pay $60 at an immunization clinic to get the vaccine done. I did that the day after I heard the news about the interview. Technically there are two doses needed, but I’m not entirely sure I will get the 2nd. Chicken pox is really scary to get as an adult, but honestly, I don’t really have $60 to throw around, and only did the first one because it was a ‘necessity’. The 2nd dose is just ‘recommended’, and I have too much to pay for right now anyways.
SO… that’s my medical exam story. BRIEF version of the story at that. lol
