This morning is only the second time that I can remember going to the hospital for myself without going to the emergency room. The last two times I have been to a hospital it has been for blood tests. The last blood test was to confirm that I had gout, about two years ago or so. This most recent one was a blood test that is required by the Thai government to show a clean bill of health in various areas (not gout, thankfully). Instead, the Thai government wanted to make sure that I was not a drug or alcohol addict, that I didn’t have syphilis (!), and that I didn’t have tuberculosis or elephantiasis [1].

This particular hospital trip was at Chiang Mai’s Lanna Hospital (like so many institutions, it is named after the buffer kingdom that once ruled independently over what is now northern Thailand). The hospital is fairly efficient and filled with a variety of different stations, each with a different function. As I was not there for emergency care (thankfully), I started in intake, and since I had never been to that hospital before I had to fill out some information on an English-language card (which was nice) and also let them copy my passport so that they could start a patient file for me.

After this I was directed to the second station, passing an “obesity station” (which definitely doesn’t apply to me). At the internal medicine ward, where blood tests are done, I looked around for some reading material (there were a couple other Westerners there), but I could only find newspapers in Thai. The nurses checked my vitals: weight of 70 kg (154 pounds), temperature of 36 degrees Centigrade (about 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about normal for me), heart rate of 66 beats per minute, blood pressure of about 103/60, all of which is pretty normal (except the weight is about 10 or 15 pounds less than I’d prefer).

When I was getting the blood test done, which was fairly fast, I was told that they needed an x-ray to make sure that I didn’t have tuberculosis, and that wasn’t a problem for me, even though the x-ray ward was the least clean and pleasant places I saw in the hospital (which was, overall, pretty nice, nicer than LA County hospital, where I saw someone die of stabbing wounds in the ER waiting room). After paying for the tests, and my coworker Art showing up, who had to make sure that I was able to explain the right tests (I had done it correctly), and then we found out there was a computer problem and so we were unable to get the receipt and results at that time.

So, while they were fixing the computers, he and I went off with our driver to the Fuji film place, where I had to get some photos for the official Thai paperwork, with a white background. Apparently, they don’t like smiling. The photographer constantly tried to make me look balanced on both sides (a hard task) and to get my face perfectly straight, I had to hold my glasses in my lap and sit stiffly while trying to “look natural” without smiling. This was not an easy or amusing task, but after about half a dozen tries or so it was successful.

After that we went back to the hospital, where the cashier’s station had the receipt and the Internal Medicine department had the results, which said I was normal (whatever that means). Since it was noon by this time, I went to the hospital cafeteria and had some krapow gai kai dow (my favorite Thai dish–basil leaf chicken with fried egg on top). Like most of the hospitals that I have visited, Lanna hospital has good and reasonably inexpensive food. Hospital food gets a bad rap, and considering that the Lanna hospital is a good deal faster (it took less than three hours and a little more than $20 on a Friday to get a blood test and an x-ray and lunch even with computer problems) than most American hospitals I have seen, I know where I’m going if I need any medical care here in Thailand.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantiasis