There's one person at the lab who can draw my blood without having to have a few practice stabs, and he was busy, so I was stuck--literally--with this middle-aged German-sounding woman who exuded a sense of stress and worry. Maybe her tension was catching, because my blood vessels tightened up and refused her access with her thick needle. (I know it's not going to be a successful blood draw when I see them aiming at me with that needle the thickness of a matchstick.)
After stabbing me and twirling the needle around and around under my skin for what felt like ten or fifteen minutes, she gave up and tried the other arm with a smaller-size needle. This one, too, she had to twirl around until (probably by pure accident) she punctured a blood vein and managed to suck out a tube full of blood. By that point, being the Big Girl that I am, I had bravely managed not to cry, or even to cry out. I go somewhere in my mind when I can, some place far away and unrelated to what's happening. But this woman was so stressed out that I didn't feel as if I could leave her unattended, so it hurt more.
By the time I got home and made coffee, nectar of the gods that it is, I was already feeling a king-sized headache coming on. But now I've had a life-restoring bowl of Cheerios and am savoring my second giant mugful of coffee, and it's time to get back in the car and head down to my husband's school where they are thoughtfully providing cheap flu shots.
The gremlins of yesterday haven't completely disappeared, but that's a story for another time. Dr. S.
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