Travel Health

Are you serious? ( # me talking to imaginary readers of this blog, anybody out there?? haha ) You wanna know where/what I had been to these past weeks? Seriously? If you insist, below were the instructions that I had to follow when I entered the first location :

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1). take off your clothes & bra, wear the gown 

2). take off your necklace 

3). tie your hair up/in a ponytail

whaaaatttt???

Those numbers I followed after these men in the queue  Now I wonder if they too had to wear the gown? haha. I guess they got different instructions in the male room thu'.

You guessed it right, I had been in a diagnostic center for  a number of  laboratory procedures. It wasn't only me. My two daughters too. We went through  those tedious, infinite queues with empty stomachs. We did 10 hours fasting  before we got there_ we were so hungry we wanted to eat every little flesh we saw infront of us ;)))

My younger daughter who's only 13 years old, didn't have to do the fasting thu'. She didn't have to undergo the blood chem tests. It was only me and the older daughter. I'm not used to these lab procedures. I rarely got sick and hardly (only twice in my whole life, when I gave births) got hospitalized. So far, the only instances that I went through  similar lab tests were for prenatal sake and for few ( like thrice or maybe 4 times? forgot ;) pre-employment medical. I hate needles. I didn't look while being extracted with blood. I tried to distract myself and before I was able to create happy thoughts, it was all over. ThanksGod! I was surprise to see like 5-6 test tubes of  blood had already been extracted from me in that so short of time.

No worries about chest xray, physical exam, urine, but doubted the optical. For sure both of my teens have 20/20 visions but their old mother has gone to being far sighted this year. I would have had aced it too thu', I was only asked to read the small alphabets in a distance ( my problem is when reading near, everything gets blurry), but I guess the fasting that had gone overdue that day had blurred my vision in a distance. Only in the smallest part thu, like maybe there were only just two letters I failed to read right. 

If  you would have to undergo the same lab procedures, especially when pre-fasting is asked, I would suggest you throw in some food in your purse to snack on after the blood extraction  and in between transfers to/from various laboratories. You won't have time to run to the canteen during those procedures. You can eat thu' while in a queue. Also ofcourse, just like a good student, you don't just take an exam without preparation. You have to make sure, atleast you don't have even the simplest colds, runny/stuffed nose or cough by the time of the medical exams. For females, time it before or after your monthly menstruation, never during.  As for the result of our exams_ everything is well on us!!! I pray that we would be able to maintain the gift of good health for the longest time.

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And you thought our "clinic trip" had ended there? Nope cos almost the whole last month we spent almost bi-weekly visiting a dental clinic.

Yup, this was not a beauty/derma clinic , although really looks like one cos of those celebrity clients photos on the walls. Seems like it's following the Belo's peg of having her derma empire risen up from showbiz ambassadors.

I'm not easy to get by marketing anyway. More often, I'm actually discouraged by it rather than encouraged.  By the way, I am a Public Relations major myself and have numerous marketing /sales job experiences.  I chose this dental clinic more on its accessibility. Definitely, quite heavy on the pocket, but in the end, the staff and the dentists didn't disappoint and were able to deliver the goods. Have to mention too that their facilities are fab and very comforting during supposedly painful dental procedures. 

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And I was back again in a diagnostic clinic early week of this month. It wasn't me, it was my brother who needed to have his vitals checked  cos he was feeling stabbing pains in his chest, his blood pressure readings were fluctuating, he had serious headaches.. in short, he's unwell.

The doctor sent him to the laboratory to undergo almost the same lab tests I did but not in the same diagnostic center I went with my daughters which was quite far from our residence.

His_ was an emergency case and we ran to the nearest one. Hi-Precision Diagnostics.It was  just right across our  village.Yes, I'm mentioning the name of the laboratory clinic and this is not a paid post. It's because we really had a good experience with them. Hi-Precision has been there across the road for as long as I can remember and it hadn't occurred to me to go there during the times we needed one. Mostly because we always shy away from crowded places ( be it a restaurant, hotel,resorts, theater, whatnots) and I passed by it always seeing it full with clients/patients.

That day, brother needed the earliest laboratory for his blood chem (also with 10-13 hours fasting). I was surprise when brother found out that HP was already open as early at around 6am. The best thing was to find out too that they charged almost half the price of  lab testing fees against  the leading hospitals in our area. For instance 2D Echo is like almost P4000 in a hospital  and there at HP is like only P2000 plus. I was also wrong to think that service would be awfully slow cos of the huge number of clients. Infact it was the opposite. Their system was great and quick. The number of staff was sufficient and dependable. The queue was already mad huge that early when we arrived but  it was refreshing to not get annoyed by it cos it was moving quickly it didn't make us stay the whole day, the way we badly experienced it from other clinics.

Releasing is also easy. We got the results after just few hours on the same day. Results are also available on line. We love the accessibility. Superb. I also have to add that they are easy to talk to. When brother ( per advised of his doctor) had to cancel a particular procedure which had already been prepaid via credit card, it was not an issue, They cancelled it and released the amount in cash to pay the credit card. How's that for a no headache resolution?

Let me end this post with this cute grandma I snapped a photo of, I saw her in the waiting area at HP,so cute she was busy tinkering on her mobile phone. A real lola (grandma) techie :)

"Health is not valued till sickness comes"