I've always been very guarded about sharing information about my medical condition. It stems from all the job interviews that I went through when I finished Uni in 1995.
I was looking for a position in the food manufacturing industry, so each and every interview had a medical questionnaire. I knew that I had to fill them out truthfully, but I also knew that as soon as they knew about my condition, I wouldn't make it through to the next round of interviews, no matter how high my marks, or my relevant experience and qualifications.
When I finally did find full time work, it was in manufacturing, but not food, and I was down to my last $12.
There was no medical questionnaire and I didn't have to voluntarily disclose anything (thankfully).
But then. two weeks after I started, I was told that I had to go and have a pre-employment medical. I started to panic.
The pre-employment medical took place at one of the local medical clinics. First up, one of the clinic nurses took me through to perform all of the relevant tests, and then I was to see the doctor, and he would check the results and discuss my relevant medical history.
Everything was going along swimmingly until the nurse took me into one of the rooms and I spotted the spirometer. She attached the nose peg, and asked me to take a deep breath, and then blow as fast and hard as I could.... which I did.
She had a puzzled look on her face, and then asked me to do it again.
After the second try, she turned around and said, "I think the spirometer is broken", and so I had to break the news that the spirometer wasn't actually broken at all!
It's quite amusing to me to go back and look at these results from 1996.
At an FEV1 of 49% of predicted normal in 1996, I could still do everything that I wanted. I was even still able to play sport. No-one would have ever guessed that there anything wrong.
Sheesh, how things have changed!
