Too scared of the potential consequences, I didn't really blog the immigration process.

But hoo baby it is blog-worthy!  So much to contend with.  I worked on it for over a year of my life, worrying and waiting and... a whole lot of other things.  In a few days, the expiration date of my visa (don't worry, I already used it), comes the anniversary of my medical exam.

This was the most traumatic portion of the entire year, and it only lasted about an hour and a half.

There are only two physicians listed in the Canadian immigration documentation for Massachusetts.  These are the two humans in the state allowed to perform these exams.  I picked the one nearest to home.

Tell her what she's won!

Filth and potential infection, Pat!

Though the doctor himself was quite a nice man, the venue...I think it must be violating several laws.  It's a walk-in clinic style facility, so they must do a lot of workplace (and other) drug testing and things like that.  This was made evident in the bathroom by signs designating procedure for peeing in a cup, which I was also required to do, and an utter lack of soap.  This, you see, helps prevent contamination of samples.  It does not help prevent infection of humans.

I had blood drawn.  I had my eyes and ears tested (I have fabulous hearing).  I was weighed.

They had me put on a gown for my chest x-ray.  I do not remove my bra in public places unless it is utterly essential, so walking around in this gown without my steel trappings, well, it made me nervous.  And then, the very nice doctor squished me against a cold metal plate.  Squish.  Bzzzzt.

Sent into a dirty room (used gauze on the floor!  yummy) to wait.

He really was a kind man.  He allowed me to babble nervously in between questions, and most of the time in the dirty room was spent talking.  Do you have this?  this?  this?  Do you smoke?  Drink?  How much?  And so forth.

And then the poking and prodding.  I am eternally thankful that no internal prodding occurred.  Because ew; I don't mind a yearly pelvic that much but one a year is plenty and I like it done in a cleaner place, please.  But there was much mammarian manipulation.  During which, of course, I kept up a running commentary about breast reduction surgery.  Nice doctor man suggested I wait until I'm through reproducing and then have 'em chopped off.  Not in those words.

I paid $400 for this.  Not to mention the other few thousand dollars for the rest of the process.  I put my clothes on and ran away.  And then I took a really long, extremely hot shower.

A few days later, guess what?  I got sick.

Next post on the immigration process: maybe fingerprinting?

Yes hi and good morning readers old and new.  I am sick.

It was a weekend of whimpering and lots of television, which is unusual - generally on weekends, Joey and I are busy packing in as much activity as possible since our weeks are dominated by staring at the computer screen.  Friday night at dinner with lovely friends, I had an attack of my usual stomach misery, thought nothing of it.  Then Joey felt a tiny bit ill all day Saturday and by nighttime was fully bedridden.  Yesterday we barely left the king-size, and not for the fun reasons.

Today, I just feel hot.  A little lightheaded, but mostly I just feel like a wee furnace.

Gotta be a reaction to the stress of the last few weeks.  I'll write about that one day soon, but it's not time yet.

In the meantime, it's burn, baby, burn.  And edit, baby, edit.