Three months have passed since my last visit to the hospital and today was my new appointment to get a refill of my pills. Actually I went to the hospital on Monday already to have the bloodwork done on time, but the experience was pretty much the same.
As I got registered in the hospital’s database and received a nice plastic card with all my data on it last time already, all I needed to do this time was to go straight to one of the machines looking like ATM’s in the foyer and enter my card there. The display said something in Japanese, I answered in full trust “Yes”, and was issued one of those mobile-phone style beepers I talked about in depth last time. Going up to my department’s reception, I said hello and was pointed toward my doctor’s office, outside of which I took a seat. I had brought something to study, and as I was almost 30 minutes early, I was ready for a longer wait and took out my stuff. I hadn’t even finished getting everything out when the beeper went off telling me that my doctor was ready for me!
Inside, my doctor and I agreed that I was doing just fine and should keep the same amount of medication. Besides that, he suggested I should eat more sushi. Seriously! Part of my bloodwork shows variations from the norm that might indicate an insufficient protein intake. Yes, I have been eating very little meat and I do agree that there’s probably not that much milk in chocolate as I might like. I promised to be more careful in that matter and left him – next appointment in March.
From there, everything went as last time: Go downstairs, present printout to the accountant, wait for beeper to indicate price, pay, and leave. From my arrival in the hospital until I left it and went to the pharmacy the whole procedure took 25 minutes, and I’m happy to state that the longest thing in all this was the actual consultation. I guess it was just a slow day with not too many people, because I had to wait much longer when I had the bloodwork done on Monday. Today, however, the longest wait was at the pharmacy until I received my pills…