Hey--it's blood test day! Nothing new here--CBC, thyroid panel, fasting blood sugar, etc. We can all take bets on how high my adjusted sed rate is.
So, off to Kaiser at 7AM. Two reasons for this--one, I do want to eat breakfast before I get exceptionally cranky, and two, I can usually get the shift supervisor or a juvie nurse on staff to do the honours. The title for this piece is from the shift supervisor.
Why? Because I have shitty veins. As one nurse told me: "you're lucky you have such light and thin skin, because then we can all see that your veins look like curly-q's". Yup--they're small, they curl all over everywhere, and they roll.
I am a blood-taker's nightmare.
The problem starts when some six-month wonder decides that I am a personal challenge. Now, I have a fairly, no very high tolerance to pain, but when someone starts digging for treasure in multiple excavations on both arms, damnit, it *hurts*. Especially when they completely pierce the veins, and I end up bleeding all over everywhere. Oh, did I say I'm slow to clot? Sure! I had one CST nearly in tears, but not before she nailed the pits of both elbows, the tops of both hands, and the top of my right arm. They finally brought someone else in and they took the blood out of my wrist, which then took about 3 weeks to come back to normal colour.
That, BTW, was one of the reasons I switched internists. The previous model was into the "I dunno, let's keep taking blood tests every week" school of medicine. I pointed out that I was never healing, much less getting good information (this guy also had me doing my own blood work sheets--don't ask...). If you aren't a physician, and you are a better diagnostician than your physician, it's time to move on, folks....
So, this morning I get the shift supervisors. After a couple of comments about my shitty veins, she decided to go for the sneaky one that always looks so tempting. She patted. She rolled. She patted again. Then she got up on top of the stepstool so she could hit things from perpendicular, and went for it.
And gloryoski, she hit it on the first time. Three tubes later, I'm getting a pressure bandage and getting out of there. Tonight there's a 1cm bruise around the site and the puncture mark, but that's it. Okay, that I can handle.
They aren't all this easy, and they aren't all that rough. I used to get the blood tests on Fridays, until I realized that this was the day they do outpatient surgery, and they brought all the kiddies who were getting their tonsils out to get the std panels. The phlebotomist always wanted me to get mine done first, so the kids wouldn't freak. I kept having to point out that I am *not* a good example. That's when I found out that the people in pediatrics could do a pretty good job on my veins. And I got a Bullwinkle bandage when I was done. What a deal!
Posted by lsefton at January 27, 2004 09:24 PM