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Part of the new, healthier, me is that I went to the doctor for a full physical. To most, this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but then again, most do not know what doctors in the military are like, so allow me to explain.
Most people are used to a word where they don’t feel well, they call their boss and say “Hey, I’m not going to be in today, I feel like crapola!”
In the military, if you are sick, you must follow a procedure known as “Sick Call.”
The way Sick Call works is as follows: You report to the first formation, which is usually PT that would start around 6:00 AM. When you get there, you tell your Squad Leader or Platoon Sergeant if you are a Squad Leader that you will be going on sick call before formation. Now some places require you to get a sick call slip before that first formation, while others would allow you to get the sick call slip after formation. So if you were in one of those places that required before, you would have to get up even earlier so you could go sign in to the sick call book, write down your illness and then report, or you could go after. Some places I was station allowed no driving during PT time as they had incidents with drunk drivers running over formations of troops running. Sounds odd, I know, but I guess it’s just easier to say no one drives rather than I don’t know, stopping the drunk drivers. So depending on where you are, you may have to sit in your car for an hour till you can drive anywhere, or you may be allowed to drive home. Now you would think, since the procedures indicate you must report to the clinic after this, that the clinic would actually open at 6:00, but the people that work in the clinic that are military have PT too, or the civilians just don’t want to get up that effin early. So now you, sick as a dog, have some time to kill. Usually by 7:30 the clinic would be open, and it will be a cornucopia of aliments, from people who have any disease known to man, to those who may have injured themselves during the night or even PT. This whole time you must be in a prescribed uniform, so here it is 7:30, you are sick, you’ve showered, shaved, and dressed about two hours ago. You never know how many people you are going to have to wait for in these clinics but rarely if ever was I out in less than two hours, sometimes as long as 11:30. God forbid you have something that requires a test, because then you could be there until lunch, no lie. You see your doctor who works for the military probably because his malpractice rates in the civilian world were way too high (sorry, few work at a military clinic because they are just a humanitarian, though some of the nurses will to bag a soldier husband.) If the doctor believes you are truly sick enough that you cannot work he may give you something called “Quarters” which means you are allowed to stay home for 24 hours, or basically until tomorrows first formation. While Quarters can be given in 24, 48, or 72 hour increments, typically it was only 24, so if you were really sick, and one day didn’t cut it, the next day you are going through the process again soldier. One time I got 72 hour quarters, but then again, I also had surgery, so I think it wasn’t that much of a stretch.
After this fine example of doctoring, I’d say over the past 12 years I would only go to a doctor if I was near death, so for me to voluntary seek medical treatment when I had no complaints is a dramatic change indeed.
I ended up getting assigned to a Physician’s Assistant, and I have to say she was quite a cute PA. She checked my blood pressure, holding my arm under hers, so I think I should get a few points off the BP as I was getting some side boob action, then proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions. I bit my tongue when she asked “Are you sexually active?” from saying “I don’t know, what are you doing later?” Since I am of a progressed age, I had feared that a prostate exam was in the future. The military did them every physical. I don’t know many 23 year olds that suffer from prostate cancer, but then again, I didn’t go to medical school. Luckily that did not happen, I did however get a hernia check, so it was nice to have a pretty PA touching my junk, at which point I had to bite my tongue again to keep from saying “I’d like to change my answer to the sexually active question.”
