My trip to the needle room

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

6:50 a.m. - Jump out of bed. I was supposed to be at Mercy Memorial for a blood test that my doctor told me I should take. It was a 5 hour blood sugar test. Don't ever tell your doctor you are feeling light headed..

7:05 a.m. - I arrived at the hospital and registered with a nurse.

7:30 a.m. - The first blood withdrawal was taken. Didn't hurt much, I figured this was going to be easy. The ladies in the outpatient lab were really nice.

8:00 a.m. - Second withdrawal of blood. This time they made me drink this awful sugar water. 'You have 5 minutes to drink it, but don't gulp it'.. so, i gulped it.

8:30 a.m. - Third withdrawal of blood. Now my vein was starting to hurt.

8:45 a.m. - Now I started to get bored. My next deposit wasn't until 9:30 a.m. So, I started text messaging Jen and some friends. I read through the a few pages of the December issue of Ready Made magazine (great read - check it out).

9:30 a.m. - Fourth blood withdrawal. The lady was surprised that I kept offering the same arm. I didn't think I had a choice, but I wanted to be tough - so I didn't budge. This one hurt. Dang I hate needles, but I didn't flinch. Next to me was this 300 lb black dude. He looked like he was solid muscle, a football player or something. Fancy dressed too. As soon as they rolled his sleeve up, he started complaining about being a big baby. Pretty soon all the nurses were having fun with this, and treating him like a baby. Maybe I should have tried that.. dang.

9:45 a.m. - Now I had to wait til 10:30 a.m. for my next needle. A young mom walked in with her kid - I knew this was going to be bad. As soon as she went to the needle room, there was a huge outburst of wailing - I bet they hadn't even taken the needle out yet. I cranked up the ipod almost to full blast so I wouldn't have to think about those childhood shots.. man those were the worst thing EVER!

10:30 a.m. - Fifth blood withdrawal. This one hurt like a bitch! I think I even flinched. I don't think the nurse put the needle in right, because damn the whole time she was drawing the blood I was in pain.

10:35 a.m. - I returned to my seat and just sat there watching people for a while. Some old guy was in there talking to another old guy that he knew. I noticed he had half of a pointer finger. I was imagining how he lost it, maybe at work or something. What was funny, was he was one of those really close talkers.. and his friend was sitting down, he was standing up - but he was still leaning in telling a story. The odd part was, he kept poking this guy in the arm with his stub finger. Weird!

11:00 a.m. - At this point, I had the ipod cranked, another kid - this time like a 2 yr old was in the room screaming his head off - I couldn't drown him out. I had completely read through my magazine and was pretty bored. The sugar drink was giving me a massive headache. I sat there and listened to a nurse whining about how she brought soup, and didn't bring a can opener.

11:30 a.m. - Sixth blood withdrawal. This time I had a nurse that knew what she was doing. It was quick and painless. 'One more hour!' she said as I went back to my seat. For the next hour I sat writing up a list of family members I plan to buy christmas gifts for. I didn't get very far, I kept running out of ideas.

12:30 p.m. - woo hoo! The needle room was full of people, so I waited at the door for a bit. An old lady led me to my seat and sat me down, made me sign some paper saying I would not come back on the hospital if I drove out of there and crashed from passing out. Then she made me swear I'd eat something before returning to work (yeah right lady, I had to run home, shower, throw on a tie, and be at a meeting I called by 1 p.m.) - I agreed I would and she proceeded to poke my arm with the needle.
Now, by this point, my vein is hurting, and this one didn't hurt so bad going in, but here comes the bad part. She pulled the tube back.. and I'm watching.. only a tiny bit of blood comes out. So she says, looks like we tapped this vein out! I was getting pissed off.. she kept tapping the vein and the end of the needle saying 'come on darnit.. why isnt any blood coming out?'.. So, being the tricky nurse she is, she begins moving the needle left and right. If this wasn't an uncomfortable feeling, i don't know what is.. feeling that needle, in my vein .. moving from side to side.. YOW. Finally, she got it to draw.. and I was done.

I hauled ass out of there, and made my 1 p.m. meeting.