Office Record

I broke an office record today.   It wasn’t a record I was looking to break.  It wasn’t even a record I knew existed.   It also wasn’t my office.

I had an appointment a doctor today.   It’s not one I see frequently and his office isn’t close to where I live.    The last time I saw him I found out he had a few days a month that he saw patients in an office a single block from my son’s school, which is quite close to where we live.    Sign me up, book me in advance and make sure it’s on a day he’s at this much closer location.

Today was the appointment and everything was fine, going well, nothing wrong, glad to see you, etc. We discussed some things and decided to run blood work to make sure everything was still good there too.   The doctor left and said his nurse would be right back in to draw blood.  

She came in and we kept chatting while she got ready to draw three vials of blood.   She complimented me on my veins, saying they looked very easy (I suppose that means they were bulgy).   She stuck me with the needle and nothing happened.   She moved the needle around and still nothing.   Strange, she said, it looked like a good vein.  

Not to worry, she’d try the other arm.   It might be good at this point to mention I don’t really have a problem with needles, because if you’ve read this far I’m betting you have an idea where the rest of the post is going—it’s needly.  

She tried the other arm.   I did exactly as told and kept still.   But no go.   Did the vein roll on her?   It looked so good, she said.    She said she didn’t miss usually and this was making her look bad.    We laughed about it and she went back to the first arm, different vein because the first vein had a nice sized hematoma under he skin from the jiggling around of the needle.

I asked her if she had to throw away the needle assembly every time considering it was the same body she was poking.   Apparently she had to.   Back to the third try, no go.   So back to the second arm, this time trying the first vein because it didn’t look that bad after the first try.    Maybe a little bit happened but it was like the veins were avoiding her.  

Had I had liquids?  Was I dehydrated?   I ran through my morning of two large hot teas with excessive amounts of milk and estimated I’d had over thirty ounces of liquid since I’d gotten up.   After the fourth try she went to get another nurse from the other side of the office who was an expert. When Lasha came in she said she had this and not to worry.  

Back to the, heck, I don’t even remember what arm and vein we’re on at this point but try five was also a failure.   And now Lasha is telling me she’s taking me back to her lab because this just doesn’t happen.

Things I’ve said at this point include, “I can go drink a lot of water and come back in a few hours it that will help”.   They said I didn’t look dehydrated from the state of my veins.    I also offered to come back another day and be sure I was hydrated then.   But that caused another issue.   Remember how my doctor was only at this location every so often?   This blood work had to be drawn today and if they couldn’t get the blood drawn they’d have to send me to the hospital.    This sounds extreme, especially for an elective running of blood work I had initially suggested.   But processes had ben set in motion.   Electronic documents had been completed.   Signs had aligned and there were reasons once committed to having my blood drawn, going back to having having it un-drawn was akin to declaring oneself legally not dead.  

I didn’t argue because we were sort of having fun and they were trying their best.   I said I thought my heart was still beating and if I was patient zero in the zombie apocalypse I was going to be annoyed, because I had holiday plans.

We went down the hall to the other side of the clinic and Lasha got me set up in her chair.    We had postulated that their needles were possibly a bad batch because I’ve just never had problems with my blood being drawn before; I’m typically fairly easy.   Try six with a different batch of needles and Lasha got exasperated.   They weren’t just sticking my arm, they were investigating each time, trying to find the vein.   And that was particularly exasperating to them.

Lasha said she’d be back and brought Keshia back.   Keshia also never failed and the karma with three nurses who did this every day in the room, the seventh try just had to work.    And it finally did. Once they got in the vein there was plenty of flow and the test tubes were filled up quickly.

Lasha said I had beaten the record of most sticks.   I don’t think there actually was a record but I said I expected to have my name on the wall going forward and that I hoped no one beat my record because hey, no one enjoys being stuck with a needle.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was building in Minecraft this weekend.   I came down to the basement to see what looked like a graveyard of three grave plots.   Indeed they were graves, my son said.   He had even made a little sign and had spelled, “Rest in Pese Steve” on it.   I said, “oh, did Steve die?”   My son backed up in the game and said, “yes, he’s right here.”  My son removed the ground layer in front of the gravestone and sure enough, he’d buried the Minecraft character Steve.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son had terrible eczema for a long time when he was younger.   As my daughter gets older she’s gone from none, to bad bouts of it.   She’s got it all over in a minor way and badly in a few spots.   She would rather scratch than let me put lotion on her, which isn’t helping her skin heal.    I got some steroid cream on the worst spots last night though and she looks better today.