gkb 26. April 2007 - 21:58
After Faust-blanching (and ultimately fruitless) attempts to obtain archived medical records as part of the requirements for my Corps service, I find myself in the position of writing a statement asserting that--to the best of my knowledge--I am in good reproductive health, and have never had any reproductive health issues in the past.
A two-month-long medical hold, during which I was in contact with three different health providers in two states, sent faxes and emails, made many phone calls, requested health records from as far back as 1999, and paid fees for archived record retrieval, was finally resolved by my writing a short statement asserting that I have never had an abnormal Pap smear. The irony is that after so much time and frustration, after the medical department agreed to accept a letter written by me stating that I had never had any health issues in lieu of the actual documentation (as getting the records from the provider in question had been about as easy as getting cats to walk in a parade), I got a telephone call from said provider THE NEXT MORNING telling me they had finally found my records and were faxing them that day. I suppose the only thing more difficult to believe would have been if I'd not been allowed to serve because of one missing cytology report from the last millennia.
A friend who had served in the Corps a couple of years previously had warned me about the seeming endlessness of paperwork involved in the application process. I'd believed him, but--as with so many other circumstances--couldn't truly comprehend the patience required until dealing with it firsthand. If there was any question that, with regards to paperwork and bureaucracy, the Peace Corps is indeed a United States Government Organization(TM), this experience should be verification enough.
