X-Rays, Shingles, and Mickey Mouse's Tuxedo

So today, April 13, 2011, I had my first chest radiograph, more commonly known as the chest x-ray. I went in at around 10:20AM and we were told to pick it up at 1:00PM. I don't know why that is relevant to the telling of this story but still, it's nice to know things.

So I heard from my friend Alex that, in taking an x-ray, you would be pressed between two machines--at least that's what it was like for her. My x-ray was different although they share the similarity of having to take off all your upper garments... awkward... haha but it was okay for me since I was given this brownish-green robe. I was asked to stand, sticking my body to this square thing that looked like a target and place my hands on my hips. Then the guy (yes, it was a guy) told me to take a deep breath and hold it, so naturally I expected to hold it quite long so there I was taking one of the deepest breaths of my life when after a second he said, "Okay, that's it!" And I felt like I spent a lot of air on that.

For my shots, we went to my paediatrician to get a record of my shots. I thought, prior to this day, that I had to get ALL the shots listed there, and I found out I already had them when I was a baby. I also found out that I already had chicken pox in 1996! I now feel apologetic towards Jillian for running away from her that one day she went back to school two weeks early after getting chicken pox, or as we affectionately called her situation chicken bulutong.

But since my mother is not very good at keeping records--I can't blame her, though, I'm the last of four children, with the first three traveling from country to country a lot--we spent quite a few minutes trying to make sure that I indeed had chicken pox when I was two years old. My mom said she was positive because that was the time my eldest brother, Francis, had to ride the plane alone when he was just a kid because he got chicken pox. Then we all got infected when he arrived.

So the chicken pox discussion reached a point where my mom asked what would be the side-effects of taking the shot if one already had chicken pox and my doctor said that one possibility is shingles. I searched more on shingles and saw that it's basically a painful rash. But I already had chicken pox, so the doctor just put down on the paper that no shot was needed since I already had it. I apparently also had my Hepatitis B three doses haha. But I need to take one more shot of this thing for grown ups. My doctor, being a paediatrician, didn't have that stuff just lying around so she'll have to order some, so I'm going back there on Friday. This is a problem because my friends were planning on playing badminton on Friday. Well, I guess I could just play Monopoly at Paolo's house instead.

After all that medical stuff, my mom dragged me under the burning sun (this was around 1 o'clock, mind you) to the cloth shop, AIKOSHINE (I think that's their name) to buy some satin red and navy blue because my mom wanted to make Blake wear Mickey Mouse's tuxedo (the one he wears at Disneyland) for his 1st birthday, but instead of black, she chose navy blue. I feel sorry for the little guy, he's gonna be sooooo sweaty haha.

So anyway, to end this blog post, I gift you with a picture of my X-Ray result. I'm a little concerned about the thing on the left--what IS that? :)) I saw pictures of chest x-rays in Google and none of them had that weird organ thing.