Are you positive?

Seems to be the question of the day and the reason I haven't had time to post on the blog in the past couple of days.

We had an extra dose of craziness thrown into the mix of getting settled in our new country of residence. When I picked up the results of Benny's (our houseboy/gardener) medical check up, the doctor asked me to come into his office. I knew this couldn't be good. He then informed me that from Benny's chest x-ray, they suspected that Benny had tuberculosis or TB. AHHHH!!! This on top of the fact that my great nanny had informed me just hours before that I should start looking for another nanny because she wasn't going to be sticking around. So the news about Benny just put me over the top.

My concerns quickly turned to the kids as they have been coughing for the past couple of weeks and coughing is a symptom of active TB. Great. I was wondering how long we would be here before I became all too familiar with the SOS clinic where we receive our medical care.

After much asking around and doing research of my own on the internet, we decided that the best course of action would be to have us all go in and get a TB skin test to see if we were exposed.

We loaded everyone in the car Saturday morning and went to the clinic for the test. After we all got our shot with the instructions to come back in 48-72 hours to have the results read, I went to pay while Justin loaded the kids in the car. Here is where I got a little comic relief which really helped lighten up the situation.

I went to the cashier and she proceeded to enter in all six of our doctor visit sheets. I was waiting not sure of what would be covered in our medical plan and thinking that I might have to pay for the TB tests. Then she says to me, "You owe 2400 rupiah. Everything was covered except for the bandaids." Ha!! I couldn't help but chuckle and remark, "Well, next time maybe I should bring my own bandaids." The bandaids did have bedadine on them so maybe that is why they were a charge, but really. All I can say is at least they didn't mark up the prices ridculously like some hospitals in the US might do. 2400 rupiah = about 24 cents.

In case you are wondering...we are supposed to go back for them to read our skin test results tomorrow. As far as I can tell, the answer to that all important question, "Are you positive?" is no. Unless something dramatic happens overnight, I think that we will all be OKAY. Praise God!!