In Which I Reveal My Fear of Twelve-Year-Olds in Scrubs.

Once upon a time, I had to get my blood drawn. This happens rather frequently when one is pregnant, apparently.

I was already not a particularly happy camper because they were making me get tested for HIV even though I KNEW there was no possible way I had HIV. This is a routine test, apparently, and there was no way around it. They explained very calmly they could either stick me now or stick my baby later, and despite the threatening undertones of this explanation, I relented and allowed them to stick me now. My poor veins.


So I'm waiting with the patience of Job at the lab where they will retrieve my blood. My number gets called, and I walk down the hall to the lab like the trooper that I am. I pause and double check my station number. Because you see, there at station five awaiting my arrival is a nervous looking twelve-year-old in scrubs. My heart sinks.


But I smile and say how do you do or something akin to it and try to put the kid at ease. Maybe he knows what he's doing. Maybe he actually has tons of experience. Maybe this won't be painful like I know it will be.

HAH.

The poor guy is just a ball of nerves. He unsteadily swabs my skin, fiddles with the rubber strap, adjusts it around my arm, then takes it off and readjusts it, all the while laughing nervously as I try to make happy small talk in a desperate attempt to calm him down so the inevitable doesn't happen.

It does.

He keeps fiddling and I know, I know, that I should ask for someone else, but the sympathetic part of my brain keeps telling me, "The poor kid. He just needs someone to believe in him. And he definitely needs the practice, so . . ."

Had I any chutzpah at all at that point, I would have told my sympathetic side to take hike and requested another person before he stuck me with the needle. As I was pondering this, he finally poked me.  Unfortunately, he had not in fact hit a vein, so he proceeded to wiggle the needle around in a somewhat desperate attempt to find one.

After a few moments, he gets up and says, "I'll be right back."

Uh...right. 

I look down. The kid has left the needle dangling in my arm, and a small drop of blood is starting to pool around it. This is not normal.

Another nurse comes over, removes the needle, and asks me if my veins are usually difficult. Because clearly, my poor veins are the problem here.

She successfully find a vein, takes my blood, and I'm out the door two minutes later.

All that to say, I'm just glad this didn't have to happen to my baby . . .