Blood Letting

Blood letting... I do it often, not that I want to but it seems that every doctor I meet is ravenous for vials and vials of my blood. Of course that involves getting needles poked in ones veins which is never fun, particularly if they miss! I have often been poked 2 or 3 times before they are successful.

Now I have to have my blood checked often, at least once a month and sometimes more. My insurance company is very particular where I go so they can save money so most of the time I cannot get it taken at Johns Hopkins unless I am on a research study. So I go to a designated commercial lab that seems to have an office in most towns. Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland I have 2 close by, one in Easton and one in Cambridge. At first I went to the Easton lab but found there was one terrible phlebotomist who could never find a vein, very nice sweet blond lady but not in the right profession, in my opinion. I mean, you need to know how to locate veins for gosh sakes.

Well, I do have small veins and they hide, yes they hide when they see a needle coming. I try to psych them out but they are tired of being poked.

After much trial and error I found the the Cambridge lab had 2 very competent older ladies who were just wonderful, in fact, better on average at "hitting the target" compared to any other group around. I was happy, no more fear. Except yesterday I found myself in what seemed like a bad blood dream. I drove over the lovely Choptank River Bridge as usual and took the second right, turned into an empty parking lot and there was a big sign on the door "MOVED". I checked my GPS and it was only one block away, so not so bad. I drove around the block and there it was in what looked like a 2-story renovated old house. Upon entering I see a sign that said "Blood Lab, 2nd floor, use elevator". Hmmm. So I looked at the elevator and there is only a down button, hmmm, I want to go up! And there is a sign that says, "Ask receptionist to use the elevator." Somehow, I didn't like this elevator and then I spotted the stairs. At least I knew they went up! At the top of the narrow staircase there was a door with no damn knob, just a hole. To make things worse you had to hold on the handrail to open the door because there was no landing and the door opened out. What? I managed to stick my fingers in the door hole and hanging on to the rail I tottered over the entry way. Mind you, my bones are creaking and complaining the whole time. Well, there is a decent waiting room but quite full of people, ugh. And where are my wonderful ladies? New people, a sullen receptionist greeted me and I signed in and sat next to an older gentleman, well older than me. Then I looked up at the desk and who showed up but my nemeses, the "sweet" blond who cannot find veins. An expletive shot my lips involuntarily (sorry nice old gentleman) and I hopped out of that waiting room very fast. On the way out I noticed that the second floor elevator only had an UP button so I took the stairs, found my car and sped toward the Easton lab. At least I knew my blond friend was not at the Easton lab!

In Easton I found the waiting room empty! What a blessing and to top it off one of my favorite ladies, now transferred from Cambridge, greeted me. She did a bit of complaining about my stack of blood slips from 3 doctors but nevertheless sorted them out and labeled 5 good-sized vials. it took 2 sticks but my blood came out nicely and did not dry up half way. "Thank the Lord" she said. Ditto!