I have friends in England and Wales, and I love when they use the term “bloody” in place of your average curse word. I would get a lot of mileage out of that.
But my reference to “bloody” actually refers to the stuff flowing through your veins right now.
Clunk…oh, sorry. I believe I bloody fainted there for a minute. I’ve just never been good with the sight of blood.
So imagine all the fun I have when I need to get routine bloodwork. Yeah, think about that.
I only came close to actually fainting once. In college, my doctor wanted to put me on a medicine that would require routine bloodwork. I went to see the nurse who worked out of a lab that was right upstairs from my doctor’s office. So convenient. Or so I thought.
This was back in the day when health care workers could pretty much stick you as much as the voodoo doll of a jilted lover (I’m happy to say that this has changed). But at the time, many people who took blood, used what I call the “eyeball method.” They looked for veins, and when they saw one, that’s where they poked you.
Problem with me is that my veins aren’t exactly prominent.
You know how when you see body builders, and they look like they have a bazillion veins just poking out all over? That’s not me. Not. Even. Close. In fact, I’m kind of the opposite.
But I digress…
This nurse poked me near my inner elbow. Nothing. Then the other one. Nothing. Then, believe it or not, near both of my wrists. Nope. No luck there.
She began poking the needle into a vein she saw on the outside of my arm. Nope. Then she tried it on the outside of my other arm. Nothing.
That’s when she made the biggest mistake of all. She held up the test tube and said, “Look, this is all I’ve been able to get,” as she swirled the tiny bit of blood around, much like a wine connoisseur.
Suddenly, the entire room seemed to turn into black and white spots. I started to lean off the chair. Luckily, my boyfriend at the time was with me, and was able to catch me. I then put my head between my legs to get the blood back into my brain.
Needless to say, my doc and I spoke about other options, and I never got bloodwork there again.
I got better as time went on. In fact, just a few years ago, I even watched as the phlebotomist was taking my blood.
Yes—as in looked at the blood going into the tubes and didn’t even come close to fainting. But then she had to speak up.
I told her how this was the first time I looked at what was going on. “Be quiet for a second,” she said. “Do you hear that?”
I didn’t know what she was getting at, so I answered, “All I hear is that ‘whooshing noise.’”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she responded. “That’s the sound of your blood going into the tube.”
This time, I got really light-headed, and my husband began to talk so that I couldn’t hear anything but his voice. Thankfully, there was no near-passing out.
Nowadays, when I get annual bloodwork, the phlebotomists find my veins by touch (no longer do I have to hear, “You have small veins.” I don’t. They’re just hard to find). They nail it on the first try, and I can actually watch when the blood flows.
But I still can’t watch them put the needle in.
Clunk…sorry for that again. I guess there are just some things I can’t bloody do.
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, who knows for sure that she could never be a good vampire, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.
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