Guess how many sticks it took to gain IV access this morning?
Previous stick record: 17
Previous time record: 1.5 hours
So guess how much butchery it took today?
10 sticks.
3 nurses.
45 minutes to get the IV, which promptly died after yielding one tube of blood.
20 minutes to get the next vial of blood.
Another 20 minutes for the last vial of blood.
Which they couldn't even fill all the way.
I have bruises that would make a heroin addict wince. Never has it hurt so much to give blood, but they kept trying to flush with saline so I got painful bubbles under my skin.
Plus I ruined my shirt running hot water over my arms. They clean the sinks with bleach so the water splattering my shirt had a touch of bleach in it. Glad I didn't dress up.
So basically, major suckage. I have terrible veins. The nurse told me she'd never seen someone so bad in 15 years (which I hope that is not a common experience because boy would that suck if my veins really were the most awful of awful).
When I'm a good stick, I'm a very very good stick. When I'm a bad stick, I'm very very bad. No in between.
Apologies to everyone working in health care.
Now let's pray the test results are meaningful. Although I'm a little concerned how valid the results will be given it's a timed test and they couldn't do any of the draws on time due to my crappy veins.
Posts
Can Doctors Give Medical Advice to Friends?
4 days ago
OOOOOOOO....That sounds awful! I have bad veins too, but it never took that long to get a good vein. I hope after stuck so many times that they can get some results for you.
ReplyDeleteYuck! My record is 8 and it was horrible. I'm so sorry.
ReplyDeleteMy sister has trouble with needles and it turned out that they just needed to use the infant sizes. Perhaps next time you could request a smaller needle?
Hope the next time is ages away.