Last September, I had two doctor’s appointment so I thot,
“Since I’m gonna spend half a day here, why not document it?”
Welcome to #sablupusjourney!
First things first, I planned to post this during my birthday but because life’s getting busier each day and I’m a procrastinator, this has been postponed to… today. #sorrryyyyyy
Anyways, this time around, I decided to bring everyone on a trip to Hospital P and have a slight insight on what the usual follow-up process is like.
So without further ado, let’s begin!
1. Registering at the hospital
Registering at the hospital normally takes about 5 to 10 minutes depending on the crowd. I normally go to the hospital on Saturdays so there are always many people.
After registering, the receptionist will hand me a file for an appointment. I will then head to the clinic on the third floor of Hospital P (this time around I headed to the optometrist and dermatologist’s clinics), hand over those files and wait for my turn.
Waiting for my turn to meet the doctor, on the contrary, varies between 0 mins (cos sometimes I can be a bit late so once I give my file then it’s already my turn) and half an hour. Sometimes it can be more.
And it also depends on whether or not I have to undergo blood test, which brings us to the next step…
2. Blood test
Okay, I get it. Not everyone enjoys taking blood test and I can understand that. But for me, I enjoy watching my own blood being drawn out into the tubes.
How many tubes, you may ask? Normally, two. I don’t think the nurses have ever taken more than two tubes of blood from me.
Earlier I said that my waiting time to meet my doctor (the dermatologist) depends on whether I have to undergo a blood test or not and that’s because it normally takes the hospital one hour to generate the blood test result.
I’d normally have to go to the hospital as early as 9.30am to take the blood test and wait an hour before I get to meet my doctor. But if I don’t have to undergo all these, then it’ll take less than an hour to meet my doctor.
Oh, and did I tell you that I only have to do this every six months in a year? And that’s cos I don’t have much medications to take anymore. The blood test works to tell the doctor (and me) on what’s going on in my body. The most important information that it gives is the state of my liver, which can be affected by the medications that I’m currently taking.
So far, my liver reading is okay. And I hope it stays that way til the end of time.
3. Eye checkup
Earlier on, I mentioned that I had two doctor’s appointment: with the dermatologist and optometrist.
While waiting for the blood test result, I had to run to the optometrist clinic (which is right next to the dermatologist’s clinic btw) and do an eye checkup. And there are a total of four tests I had to go thru:
- Reading (the one where you have to close one eye and read those tiny af letters)
- Colour blindness (like the ones you have to take for your driving license examinations)
- The dot game (I call it the dot game cos I don’t really know what it’s called but it’s to test the range of my sight)
- Scan (this isn’t really a test but the nurses will scan my eyes to detect any abnormality in it)
- Photograph (this isn’t really a test too but the nurses would normally take seven photographs of my eyes)
While most of the tests seem pretty normal, I have to undergo eye dilation (to increase the size of my pupil) for the Photograph session. This is so that I don’t go blind during the process.
Consequently, that would also mean that my eyesight will be pretty bad. I’ll be temporarily farsighted for about four hours or so. This would mean no driving, texting, focused reading and moreeeee resting for me. If this were to happen on a weekday, it would mean that I have to take an MC leave. 😦
So far, my eyesight is okay but as I mentioned in one of the previous #sablupusjourney posts, I have cataract and there’s nothing much that can be done about it at the moment.
4. Results!
Last but not least is the consultation process and results. After spending almost half a day going from one doctor’s clinic to another, the results for both blood and eye tests were ready.
The dermatologist told me that everything seems fine and that I’m making a progress (in a good way). If everything seems okay by the end of this year, we will be in talks of undergoing a plastic surgery operation! But that’s a story of its own for another day (and, yes gais, I will update y’all).
The optometrist, on the other hand, told me that besides cataract, I should not worry about my eyes. All I have to do is to monitor the state of my eyes. If there’s something odd about my eyesight, then I’ll have to meet her up again.
So far, I passed both tests with flying colours. 😛 #notfunnysab
Anyway, once the consultation process is over, I’d normally book for another appointment with both doctors before paying and collecting my medications… which brings us to our final (yes, this one really final okies) stage…
5. Getting the medication at the pharmacy
Getting medication might be the least interesting stage among all the other stages tbh. But it’s one of the stages regardless.
It’ll normally take me about 10 to 15 minutes to wait for my medication (cos, again, so many people). But once they call out my number, the process that follows after is smooth af.
Anyway, normally once I took my medications, I’d head back home straight.
So yea, end of story. 😀
Some of y’all might wonder why do I even bother writing this out anyway. Well, part of me wants to write this out because I was bored but another part of me just wanted to share what it’s like to undergo all these processes.
And I get why some people, who have been in and out of the hospital, get sick of this process. It’s time consuming and can be tiring. And it can get annoying at times too.
In addition, I wanted to write this to keep you updated (heh, I don’t know who’ll be reading this and who’d actually care but oh well) about the state of my health. So far I’m doing fine but I don’t know what may or may not happen in the future.
Also, it’s cos some people, at times, have been asking me about my state of health so I thot putting it here might be a good idea so that I can just send them a link for them to read out on what’s happening to me instead of telling people the same thing over and over. Because that itself can get tiring too.
Anyways, I hope y’all would get something from today’s sharing and hope to see you again in the next #sablupusjourney!
Ciaos!
NB
Sabrina Noor 
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