Visite Médicale

We have now been in France for nearly 5 months, but it wasn't until yesterday morning that we became official temporary residents.

Upon arriving in France (in September) we sent all of our passport copies, visa copies, work authorization copies, and necessary forms off to the OFII (Office Francais de l'Immigration et de l'Intégration). We waited, waited, and finally a couple of weeks ago we got our notice with our required medical visit scheduled for February 1st.

So we went to the OFII, not really knowing what to expect, except for a few things we had heard from another assistant, Erin. We showed our appointment papers to the secretary, we waited in a room for a while (with many people of many nationalities), then I was called out first. I was weighed and measured (with my big coat and boots still on) and then given an vision test. The nurse asked if I had diabetes, if I had a problem with weight, and if I wanted to have a bloodtest. I answered no, no, and no, and then she told me to go into this tiny little dressing room with a door on the other side and she said something quickly that I didn't understand... something about my "soutien-gorge" (bra). So I asked her to repeat it, and she told me to take EVERYTHING off the top and then go into the room through the door on the other side of my tiny little room. So, I followed her instructions, peeking out the door into the big room. There was a lady talking on her cell phone who gestured me to walk over to a big machine. She didn't seem alarmed that I was topless, so I was glad to know I had understood the first nurse correctly. After a chest x-ray (she talked on her cell phone the whole time!), she waved me to go. So I put on my clothes and went out to the waiting room. Doug came out shortly after me and we confirmed with one another that we had similar experiences. We then waited for a while and then I got called out by a doctor. He took me to his office, held my x-ray to the light to show me and told me my lungs were perfect (not that I would have been able to tell if anything was wrong by looking at the x-ray!). He asked me a few medical questions- any big diseases in the last year? The diabetes in the family? The mother's breasts okay? The high blood pressure? I told him I thought my father had high blood pressure and he advised me to not eat too much of the salt. He grabbed my neck (kind of strongly) and told me to swallow and told me my thyroid was good. He checked my blood pressure and said it was perfect and pushed around on my stomach (which was terribly uncomfortable because I had drunk 2 big cups of tea before we came and really needed to go to the bathroom!). He listened to me breathe with a stethescope and then told me everything was good. I went back to the waiting room for a while longer. Doug got called out next. A while after Doug returned, we got called to the desk and gave our proof of residence and were told to go to a different waiting room. So we waited a while longer and then were called back to an office where a lady asked a few questions confirming name and work, and then put a new visa sticker in our passports. We also got to keep our chest x-rays, by the way, and were advised to keep them for 10 years... Doug said he will frame his.
So, all together, the process took about an hour and a half... well 5 months and an hour and a half :-)