Part ten; the medical

So, I survived the medical! London was wonderful [as ever] and everything seemed to go good. Definately better then I expected, Monday night I was a horror and just was in extrememe panic about it all. I was going to fail, they'd never let me in, i'd loose Joe. But I knew I had to go so on Tuesday morning I rolled up to the private clinic in Mayfair for my visa medical. Everyone aiming to move on a visa who is over the age of 15 has to have a medical - no if buts or maybes. Mine luckily took only 45 minutes and consists of three key parts. 

You have to go along with their downloaded medical questionnaire, another is given to you when you arrive, asking all the questions from have you ever smoked, had a history of depression, ever hurt anyone else or if you're on any medication. [Visa's are all about box ticking.] Then a nurse went through my vacation records. For some reason mine were only recorded since 2000 so all of my childhood jabs haven't been recorded for whatever reason. All was fine apart from somehow missing my second MMR jab [apparently a lot of people have never had the second booster injection] and being a requirement for the visa there was no two ways about it. Injection it was - i'm luckily fine with needles, getting tattooed overcame that horror.

A lot of the time was spent waiting between the checks, so after the second wait it was time to get the X Ray taken to check for TB - all a case of wearing a robe, having to hold a protective lead vest and breathing in and out. Then after even more waiting, it was time to see the doctor. 

Seeing the doctor was the bit I was really dreading, I get very iffy about going to the GP generally so a one to one consultation wasn't on my list of things to do. BUT luckily, she was really nice and very friendly. What they check as far as I can see is dependent upon the doctor your seeing, your age and what you've ticked on the questionnaire. Being 24 and only ticking that I use to smoke kind of limited the things they could check. So she checked my eye sight, ears, mouth, breathing and my heart rate was followed by and abdominal and breast check and taking blood. The latter was the hardest bit - for the doctor at least but they need it to check for HIV and other things. I apparently have tiny veins and my blood flows very slowly. It took a while to fill a vile.

So for 45 minutes it all cost, with the added vaccination £243. Ouch. If I don't hear anything from them everything has come back fine. Now just back to waiting. Gah.

Thank you to everyone that wished me the best of luck for the medical - it really did help.

Image from weheartit.com