I had to go to the doctor for a check up in order to play on the hoop team that I can´t really play on... hmm, that makes sense. Inaki showed me twice how to get there, but I still got lost. I left at 3:30 for a 4:00 appointment and finally figured out where I was at about 4 and found a parking spot at 4:15. I´ve heard it´s culturally ok to be late in Spain, so I wasn´t too worried. But when I got there, the doctor called the sports pavillion to tell them I made it, meaning he had called to say I was late earlier! Oops.
But, I´m getting ahead of myself. Just getting into the building was a rough one for me. I pushed the little buzzer outside the tall building that looks like an apartment complex. The doctor answered, in Spanish. At that point I was all worked up because I was more than 15 minutes late and wasn´t understanding much Spanish, let alone english. I told the doctor who I was and he buzzed me in. I couldn´t tell where his office was, based on the buzzer, so I had to go back out and ask. He buzzed me back in and waited in teh hallway for me. In Spain the floor numbering is different from home. What we would call the 1st floor is the 2nd, etc.
Anyhow, I found doc and then he made the A-OK call. Like every doctor´s appointment, first thing´s first. He had to interview me on my medical history. I think I understood what he was saying for the most part. I either told him I was completely healthy, or that I have cancer, respiritory problems and a history of heart disease in my family. He nodded and smiled, so I figured I was good to go. At a few key moments I misunderstood him. Have you ever been in a foreign country and had the word menstration yelled at you repeatedly? That´s yet another new experience I´m crossing off my¨"to do" list.
Next came the physical. He sort of pointed into a back room and motioned which clothes I needed to remove and which could stay on. This could have been a highly embarrassing moment also. So I figured I´d just leave more on than I´d take off and let him tell me again if I needed to remove more.
First, I took off my shoes and stood on a glass plate about a foot off the ground and he turned on a light beneath my feet for a few seconds. I´ve never done that at home. Then I touched my toes, tested how hard I could breath into a tube, the usual. Next came the really odd part. He had me lay down on the table and strapped rubber bands to my ankles and writsts and then attached dull metal spikes to the rubber which were attached to a machine through a cord. Then he took more cords and attached them to my stomach and chest with little air suction thingys. It was all quite a mad scientist situation really. I don´t really remember what happened next... hopefully not a Seinfeld at the dentist moment. I think the machine was turned on and I laid there for a minute or two.
Post-machine was the skin fold test, which I´d never had, but made me feel quite fat. I rode and exercise bike for 10 minutes and had more little suction things on me and doc gradually upped the resistence. By the end it was pretty hard and I kind of wanted to push him away from the damn knob! But, I made it, harm free. He gave me a note to give to the sports club, who knows what it says. I guess I should read it. And that´s it, I´m cleared to play for my team, but I can´t really play. This is a true test of making every practice a game situation. Scott, you should really use that psychology. Tell half the team they aren´t going to play Friday and see how they do in practice. They´ll be animals I tell you!
Quite an experience. And now, not one I will forget because it has been immortalized ala blog. Tonight´s the Los Delincuentes concert, yay! That´ll be blogged tomorrow. This weekend I get to play in a game Saturday night with the not so good team from the club. Hoops are hoops though. Yesterday I took Alexis to one of the Navarra games, the team I practice with. He had a lot of fun and so did I, explaining things to him and such. And that´s about it. I better get a tema session done and get a run in because it´s pretty out again. Word.
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