Last March 16, 2008. West Contact Services Inc. The company that I have been working for as a Technical Support Representative for almost 4 years now, hosted an Annual Physical Examination. During that time the company invited a group of doctors to check our physical well being. Everything went smoothly for me. Although I got a nasty bruise on the inside of my elbow due to the botch blood collection which collapsed my vein (which happens sometimes), and all examinations went by quickly. Until, it’s time for the eye examination. The optometrist a lady with shoulder length hair, glasses and talks about a hundred words a minute. Which makes you think that your talking to a machine gun, ask me to sit on a chair and try to read the eye chart, which to my dismay is more or less 10 feet away from me. The standard is of course 6 feet. Naturally I wasn’t able to read the chart, which this “doctor” (and I use that word very loosely) told me that I need to wear glasses. Which doesn’t really surprised me because when I was a kid I started wearing when I was in kindergarten and ended when I was in my junior year of high school my doctor an OPTHALMOLOGIST told me that I didn’t need it any more. Any way, the “doctor” said that I have to wear glasses with a prescription of 120 on my left eye and about 50 on my right. She was pretty sure about it in less than 5 minutes. Then she used a machine which shows a picture of a tree in it. And after three minutes, she declared I have astigmatism. I asked for the test printout but what she did was to get a piece of paper and wrote down the prescription, which was odd. I ignored it then waited for her to release me so that I can go get my x-ray taken. The “doctor” suddenly let loose a volley of sales talk that I can order my glasses from her which she will gladly give a 50% discount. I suddenly have this urged to smack her on the face. But I restrained my self less I want to be look for a job soon. Anyway she told me that the frames can only be bought for only 1,500 pesos and the lens would go for another 1,500 pesos, because, according to her I spent my time working in front of the computer and my lenses needed to be multi–coated.. I was thinking 3,000 for a piece of eye glasses? Is she nuts? I declined the offer and went on my way. After that episode I can’t stop thinking about the condition of my eyes. It was always in the back of my head. Fortunately my mom trained me to never trust an optometrist. So with my HMO card I trooped to the nearest Healthway clinic and made an appointment to a real eye doctor an ophthalmologist. I waited eagerly for my turn. The doctor called for me and gave me another eye examination after I explain to him what happened, his diagnosis? I do have astigmatism but it’s really not that severe, and here’s the good part. I don’t need to wear glasses at all not unless I have frequent head aches or having a hard time to seeing things. He told me eyeglasses can’t remove astigmatism it doesn’t heal the condition either, it’s use to only help me see better. The doctor then proceeded to check my eyes thoroughly and declared my left eye should I wear glasses needs a prescription of 50 and my right eye doesn’t need to use eye glasses. I knew it! I knew that optometrist is a fraud! I never trusted her the moment I laid my eyes on her. She was just after sale! The ophthalmologist released me and ask me to return if and only if I’m have problems seeing thing and that will be the only time that he would recommend eye glasses to me. I skipped all the way to the exit.

That my friends why you should never trust optometrist, specially the kind that sells you eye-glasses and frames, immediately after the eye exam. My parents never trusted them and trained me and my brothers to do likewise. If you need to have your eyes checked go to an ophthalmologist the real doctor for the eye. Optometrist, are there to rip you off.

Unfortunately some of my friends fell victim to that optometrist which the company hired for our A.P.E the company should’ve check her out first. They were separated with their hard earned money just so that the “doctor” can earn and very dishonest living.

If there is one exam I don’t want to take, its the Annual Physical Exam. I hate it so much that this will be my second hate blog about that. The first one was here. I hated the undressing in front of the doctor, getting the specimens, plus all the blood and dirt.

Yesterday, we had our Annual Physical Exam at our office. But instead of making it ruin my day, my officemates and I made a lot of good jokes about it. Very colored jokes actually so dont read them while eating.

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Getting the stool specimen is the nastiest part of all. Some of us had a hard time producing them during the day. So one of our officemates suggested:

“Pre, sino pa walang ‘ebs’ dyan? May binebenta sa baba. Per kilo. Minimum 1 kilo.”

I just can’t imagine how they would sell those things.

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The annual exam was supposed to be last Tuesday but was moved to give way to an important meeting.
Our admin announced the change in the schedule.

“Paano yan? May stool na ako.”

“Ok lang yan. Lagay mo muna sa ref para hindi mapanis.”

***

“Pre, may result na daw sa stool exam mo.  May nakita daw sila na problema.”

“Di nga.  Mabilis a.”

“May reseta na rin na gamot ang doctor.  Combantrin daw.”

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