Before we began working we had a ‘health screening’. I assumed this would involve some sort of typical doctor’s visit with my biggest fear being that the physician would do an abdominal exam. Anytime someone pushes on my liver my reaction is to writhe in pain. I like to think that this is a non-issue so I will go no further on that topic.
I was misinformed. There was no doctor. Instead there was a plastic cup. I don’t know about you, or if you’ve ever had to pee in a cup. I will not judge your lifestyle or the freaky bladder issue that landed you in the stall with a toilet full of blue water. But for me this was a first.
A nurse called me in and naively I followed her, blissfully unaware of their motives. I was handed a cup, pushed into the bathroom, told not to flush the toilet or run the faucet.
She closed the door behind me and there I was, one moment a happy, bright eyed pup and the next reduced to criminal status, being asked for urine toxicology.
At this point I am fairly sure my shock and terror caused any pee in my bladder to dry right up. Subsequently, I had nothing left to give the plastic cup. So after sweating about it in the bathroom for a couple of minutes I decided to just tell the nurse, I couldn’t do it.
She looked at me like I was a complete waste of space and sent me out to do the rest of the lab work.
*Note at this point this ‘health screening’ has asked of me blood and sweat, the tears are on the way.
I returned for attempt number 2; which was very similar to attempt number 1; however, this time I stood against the wall and willed my bladder to fill up for a good 3-4 minutes before heading back out empty cup in hand. Wondering what the hell was wrong with me, since normally I can pee every 10 minutes.
The nurse was pretty unhappy that I had wasted two collection cups and so I think this caused her to say to me, “You must be too skinny to pee.” I was then made to sit in shame with a glass of water.
I asked if I could come back the following day to do the test. The nursing supervisor was consulted and basically everyone at employee health now knew that I could not pee on demand. At this point I am positive they assumed I was some kind of drug user and that I was just trying to plot a way to get some pee I had brought along with me into the bathroom to substitute for my own.
Two glasses of water later, I decided to go for a walk. A can of Pepsi later I still did not feel the pressure; but I figured I just needed to be in the right environment.
Attempt number 3: I became very outraged at myself and spent 5 minutes mentally shouting at my stupid bladder, for being so unreliable and generally the worst organ in my entire body. Then for another couple of minutes I wondered if I would ever void again and all of this coupled with the fear of getting fired even before I’d begun had me on the verge of tears.
This time I was told I was a ‘very silly girl’ and made me go back to the waiting room. Here I was given another glass of water, while I tried to act nonchalant and made small talk with the other waiting interns. By this point I had been in the office for over an hour, anyone who had been there originally was long gone.
The final and 4th attempt was a success and the nurse was so glad to get rid of me after an hour and a half, she sighed blatantly.
I was pretty sure this entire event would blow over and I would just laugh about it to myself. The next week I went back to get my ppd read and the same nurse was there, I was sure after meeting about 100 interns and with the gap of a week she would not even recognize me.
As I left she whispered, “You’re the one who couldn’t pee.”
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