Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Blood scares and fire alarms


When we bought our home, we got life insurance to big enough to cover our mortgage. But we thought we needed to increase the coverage if we are going to have kids, and our insurance advisor said we better get it before I get pregnant or they will charge a much higher premium or maybe not even insure me.
So last night we had to get a physical. The nurse comes over to draw our blood and collect a urine sample. A urine sample?! I didn't know about that. I've chronicled here previously how bad I am at peeing on command. So I drank two entire bottles of water as we spoke and I was able pee enough, thank god. She asked what medicines I took today - clariten, echinacea, and prenatal vitamins. When I said prenatal vitamins, her head popped up so quickly, and I quickly responded "I'm not pregnant!" She looked at me suspiciously - "Then why are you taking the vitamins?" Then she said to K, "so, um, are you two sisters or something?" Nope, we're life partners.
When she drew K's blood, K said that her veins are deep and nurses have had trouble in the past. The nurse goes on and on about people passing out. Was she trying to make K nervous? I kept trying to change the subject, but the woman was relentless. So then she decides that K needs to have blood drawn from her hand. K gets pale and begs her not to draw from her hand. Then she decides to draw blood from K's forearm. It was ridiculous - K has had blood drawn from her elbow many times - but the nurse wouldn't even try. So now K is super nervous, and she starts to draw blood and K starts feeling tingly and light-headed. Then she starts sweating. Basically she almost passes out. She's never done this before and I completely blame that nurse. She did everything she could to make an already nervous person more nervous! K is fine and the event was marked by the most beautiful and bright double rainbow outside. There's a picture above.
We went to bed. Then at 2am there was a fire alarm in our condo. We quickly threw our clothes went outside and stood around with our neighbors for a while, and then went back to bed. This morning I woke with a headache. The start of a very busy week. What happened to one activity each week?

2 comments:

N said...

UGH. I'm SO sorry you had to deal with that crap.

Anonymous said...

I am seriously starting to hate phlebotomists. The sh*t we had to deal with about 2 weeks ago, and now this happening to you...ARGH! What is the big deal about drawing blood??

- Strawberry