At 7:00 a.m. I showed up at the diagnostics clinic door. I was third in line. I printed out my ticket, went to pay for the tests, but I was still half asleep. Standing in front of the receptionist, I tried to remember which tests I needed to do. But I first had to dig them out on my phone.
While I was scrolling, the receptionist barked:
“ID!” And when I looked up at her, she added, “Please.”
I slid my ID across the counter, already bracing myself for a scolding because it didn’t reach her in a second.
I finally found the list of tests that my partner’s niece, a medical student, had told me to do. I listed everything I had written down.
I went back to the reception hall, spun around in place. And instead of going in right away, I waited for an invitation, but no one rolled out a red carpet. Then I heard:
“Your number,” said one of the waiting clients, pointing at the screen.
I looked at my ticket, then pulled the door handle. A rather stocky woman in a blue lab coat, around fifty-five, I’d say, came out towards me. And straight away she went:
“Why aren’t you coming in? You need to be more decisive here, come on in.”
I tried to slip past her like a shadow towards the blood draw chair. But she called out to me like a traffic cop blowing a whistle at a pedestrian crossing:
“URINE!!!”
I stepped back and pulled the urine container out of my backpack. I’ve had enough of all the women yelling at me since this morning.
First, my partner was shouting because I couldn’t pee on command. She even turned on the tap to encourage me with the sound, but still nothing.
And now this one was telling me to hand over the urine I had struggled to collect in the container. No empathy, no single word of appreciation.
With a frown, I placed the container in front of her, when she said, “Not here, there,” pointing to a white paper towel to show me where I should set it down.
So maybe it’s time to light some candles and start praying to this damn urine container, I thought. But in the end, I forgave her, if she hadn’t reminded me, I’d have gone home with the fucking thing and got scolded again.
The woman told me to sit down in the chair and get my arm ready for the needle.
“Phew,” I thought, “I’m safe now,” when suddenly I froze mid-squat as I heard:
“Could you take off that thin little jacket?”
I only realized then I was still zipped up, even though the test was all about giving them access to my arm.
I tried to wriggle out of my rustling raincoat like a fish out of a net, when she said:
“Next time, please leave your little jacket at reception.”
“Sorry,” I said, “next time I’ll leave it, but this is my first time here, that’s why all this mess.”
And she looked at me sort of sternly, but I could tell she was holding back from bursting out laughing.
“It’s fine,” she said.
From that moment on, the walls seemed to expand, and finally there was some room to breathe.
“Please clench your fist.”
“Oh, you don’t need to ask me that,” I thought.
“First time?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been until now?”
“I wasn’t living in Poland.”
And she asked:
“Where?”
“Ireland.”
“How long were you gone?”
“Fourteen years.”
“Oh fourteen years. And now what’s going on?”
“I’ve been losing weight. We can’t figure out why.”
“Is it because you miss Ireland?”
“I used to, but it’s been a few years. Ireland hasn’t exactly been pining for me, so I figured we’re even.”
She scanned me from head to toe. I felt like she was about to pull out a badge with FBI written on it and fine me for too low vitamin D levels.
“You don’t look sick, but we’ll check everything in the results to be sure,” she said.
So I thought: Well, she sucked my story right out along with my blood in just five minutes. She should’ve been hired by the CBA. But hell, people in this country never seem to appreciate talent.
CBA – Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in Poland.
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