Vein Fishing

Since yesterday morning I’ve been fighting some kind of stomach bug. I woke up feeling a little weird yesterday morning, but by 1pm, I was feeling downright awful. What I have is very similar to what Zoe and Landon had, only I got the bonus fever to go along with the deal.

Lucky me.

I’m not going to moan and groan about it though, as I realize there are much worse things going on in this world than my being sick in bed. Lying in bed has given me lots of time to think (and catch up on reading blogs, watch recorded TV and realize that it’s time to buy new pillows).

I was thinking about how scared I was prior to my surgery and I then remembered how I had to go get all my pre-op blood work done. The surgeon sent over a list of things that I had to have done before the surgery and the particular tests he needed run on my blood. Apparently his office didn’t send everything over so I had to go to the hospital a couple of days before my surgery to have more blood work done. The nurse that ended up doing my blood work was terrible. My arm was a little bruised from where the original blood had been drawn a few days earlier and she saw that and decided to draw blood from the same spot. So, she tied off my arm, grabbed her needle but then couldn’t see the vein anymore. So, instead of untying my arm and using a different vein (which my body is full of, by the way) she grabs a pen and marks where she thinks the vein was and pokes my arm. Well, the vein was nowhere to be found, so she fishes the needle around in my arm hoping to hit something.

Ouch and gross!

When nothing happens, she finally takes out the needle and decides she’ll try to draw the blood from the top of my hand. She insures me it won’t be bad because she’s going to use a pediatric needle, and they are tiny. (I should say that I’ve had blood drawn a zillion times, and am in no way afraid of needles…but, she was scary.) So, she pricks the top of my hand, gets her vial of blood and we’re finally done. I didn’t think drawing blood from the top of my hand was any different than having it drawn from inside my elbow…until I was halfway home and felt this big lump forming on top of my hand. By the time I got home it was throbbing and huge! I had a large bruise on my hand for about a week, and every time I looked at it, all I could think was that that stupid nurse was probably doing that to other people. It still pisses me off. I just hope she isn’t responsible for drawing blood on children!

Another thing that popped into my mind while lying in bed was when I was getting ready for the actual operation on the day of. A nurse took me back to a pre-op waiting room and as she was starting my IV, she was asking me how I was feeling. I told her I was a little nervous because I had never had any kind of surgery and wasn’t sure what to expect. She then told me “I’ll tell you what I tell all my patients, if you aren’t ready to go, don’t go to the light. Stay away from the light!”

And then she cackled.

At first I thought that was a little bit strange to say to someone who’s already nervous about surgery, but later I realized it was just flat out insensitive. Of course there is always a risk of something going wrong, even the possibility of death, but come on! I was already a bit freaked out, but once she said that it was pretty much all I could think about and I had plenty of thinking time (my surgery was 2 hours late)!

Anyways, I lived through all of it and none of it was even that bad. I just hope I won’t have to do it again anytime soon…and that if I do, that those two nurses will have retired!