Saturday, June 07, 2008

Pee in This


A couple of weeks ago, we had to renew our life insurance policies. To do that involved a little visit by a nurse to our home. He asked us a hundred health questions and when he was finished with that, he began the physical component.


He needed to take our weight. Well, I didn't enjoy that, need I even say so. He is a tiny Philippine nurse and here is me with my viking roots! I probably weigh double what he did. But he was very professional and didn't even bat an eye when the springs all popped out of his scale and the word TILT flashed on the screen!


One good bit was our Blood Pressures. The nurse did Keith's first. He had to do it three time in a row to make sure of accuracy. It was 118/70 and I could see Keith was very pleased with that, even if somewhat surprised with himself. Keith hasn't been running for a while because his knees give him trouble when he does. We both have very active job though and he is playing ice hockey. We also have a pretty good diet. We don't eat anything white. All whole grain breads, porridge, brown rice, lots of fish and spinach! As the nurse began pumping up the cuff on my arm, Keith was leaning in to see what it would read. I was certain my BP would be nowhere near as good as his. To both our surprse, mine was even lower than his, at 114/62.
Next, came the blood tests. Keith managed not to faint, he is the biggest chicken when it comes to needles. For good reason though. Usually they have a hard time getting his veins. Sometimes he has to be poked three or four times before they strike blood! This nurse was really skilled with the needle though. He got it into Keiths vein on the first try.

The last thing to do was the urine samples. They had to be witnessed, by the nurse. He had a strip on the side of the container that told him if it was body temperature. That way, if you were a drug user, you couldnt use someone elses clean urine that you had stashed in your bathroom. I had no trouble with that, I pee 100 times a day, so I produced the specimen with little effort. Keith on the other hand isn't grnerally a frequent urinator. He tried and strained but was not able to produce a single drop for the nurses jar! I told him to do jumping jacks, that would do it for me. He drank six glasses of water. while the nurse was there, and still nothing. So the nurse had to go and of course then Keith spent the rest of the afternoon in the bathroom!

Yesterday, he got a call at work from the nurse. He still needed to get the urine. He offered to come to Keiths work as it was easier than him having to drive all the way out here to maple Ridge. So they met in the parking lot out side the terminal gate. The nurse gave him the jar to pee in. Keith looked around and said, I am not going to pee right here in the parking lot! So the nurse let him go into the bathroom. Fortunately, this time, Keith had a full bladder and was sucsessfull in his jar filling attempts. He came back out to the parking lot to find the nurse had set up a drape over the hood of somebodies car and was standing on the ready with test tubes in a rack with his latex gloves on,. He did what he had to, to the urine. spilling some of it of the persons car! When all was said and done the nurse left and keith turned to go back to work shaking his head at the complete lack of proffesionalism! The guard at the gate stopped him and asked what all that had been about! So as Keith explained, the owner of the (lab table) vehicle came and got into his car and Keith and the guard had a good chuckle as he drove off with pee dripping off the hood!

Well now we are insured again for another 10 years. Life insurance is one of those things that you buy, and hope you will never need. Last week, a friend of ours lost her husband suddenly. She woke up in the morning and he was dead beside her. Only in his very early sixties! What a horrible thing for this woman to go through., but having life insurance helps to make such a difficult time more bearable.

5 comments:

Penny said...

Funny how when you're nervous you usually have to pee but are absolutely unable to pee on command.

Joe Robinsmith said...

I just went through all that in January. After being quoted $37 a month for the life insurance, after the nurse was here, I had a $25 per month surcharge because I was in there words too heavy for my height and my blood pressure was too high. My doctor has always said I'm just "husky and muscular". To the Life people though it's all numbers. So now after 6 months of better diet, less stress and lots of workouts, weight down and blood pressure down, and they still won't take off the surcharge for up to a year ! ! maybe next month...

Chastity said...

Our life insurance is super cheap through my husband's employer, and we never had to do a physical exam...now I wonder why that is.

Bobbie said...

I can't believe that the nurse collected Keith's sample in a parking lot on the hood of a car!! How un-professional!
Glad you both passed your physical exams and got the insurance.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the rigamarole that is necessary to get life insurance these days. It makes me wonder if those with high BP's and chronic illness even qualify.

Yay on having such healthy blood pressures. That is such a big thing when it comes to overall health.