Bad Consequences to Good Intentions
Dec. 15th, 2005 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenAnd I thought I was being good...
... when the coordinator of the blood drive at work wrote to say that there were openings she couldn't fill at 11:20 and 11:30, I dropped by the collection room and asked if they'd both been filled. The scheduling lady said no, and penciled me in and looked me up and there I was, wah la.
So I filled out my paperwork and the questions that make it so that only 2% of the living population of the world can actually donate blood (uhm, that was just me being cynical, given the questions), and then got my iron checked and it was okay. My pulse was a surprisingly low 52, and I drank my usually two pints of liquids.
They said that they'd try the left arm, which is a hard arm to do, and they pounded it and I pumped my hand, and they said, "Okay, we have it."
And then the technician missed the vein. She then used bare fingers (no gloves, what?) to *TWIST* the needle. Not reposition it, not just poke around a little, she twirled the damned thing, which I've never seen before and never really want to see again, and hit the side of it and the vein gave about a foot long length of tubing's worth of blood and decided that it was a very bad idea and stopped. Just closed one of the valves in the vein and said, "Uh uh, no bleeding to death today."
So they pulled the needle from the left, tied it up in a red ribbon, and then tried for the right.
Prep was fine, etc. Then the technician, already made nervous by missing the other vein, and thinking that I didn't want to see the needle go in (20 some odd years of giving blood, platelets, and white blood cells I'd better NOT be squeamish of needles), she pushed the needle in so damned hard she not only goes right through the vein and out the back but into the connecting tendons of my forearm muscles to my elbow.
I say, quite patiently, "It feels like you've gone right through." As the technician is puzzled as she pulls the stops off the collection bag and no blood comes through.
She pulls out the needle a bit.
"It's still pinching," says I.
She pulls it out a bit more and I feel the very tip come free of the far wall of the vein. "There," says I. The blood flows darkly into the tubes, the vacuum test tubes, and then down to the patiently rocking collection bag. I sit back and freeze in the wind of their damned fan which is blowing cold air at me, but the blood flows and that's okay.
When it's full, which is faster than they anticipated, they let it actually go over the pint mark and finally come over to pull the needle. The ever-generous right vein decides it LIKES giving blood and does not stop. I sit there for nearly fifteen minutes holding my arm up and they check it every two or three minutes as there's now a line forming of people that want to donate, and the vein cheerfully burbles up more blood each time they check it.
Sigh.
When she finally wraps it, she wraps it *tight*. So tightly that I can't even eat with my right hand when I go to lunch. I end up eating with my left hand instead of my right, and when the hour is up for the pressure bandage, I finally loosen it enough to stand it for a while. I still can't really type with the right arm, and an hour later, I finally take both pressure bandages off, and every time I straighten my right arm it *hurts* badly enough that I can't concentrate. I have a few meetings that are actually easier to concentrate on if I don't bring my machine, and from that, I finally go get Jet.
Poor Jet asks me to pick him up and I tell him, "I can't..." and show him my "blood owies" as he calls them, and satisfied by that, he hops into his seat himself and straps himself in.
Jet and I actually had a pretty good evening. John had a church meeting, so we had a really quick dinner of Jet's leftover cheese pizza from another night, and then Jet and I went and got our Crackpot efforts and then got another present for Daddy. That was fun. He was great at just going everywhere I was going and was quite understanding about my not being able to pick him up. Finally we ended up at home, and Jet decided HE was going to wrap Dad's present. He asked me for some instructions, but told me that I wasn't to do anything. Hee.
That was fun.
My arm is much better today, thank goodness. The vein closed itself from both sides, and there's been no seepage, so my arm isn't one Gigantic bruise. Where the muscles connect to the joint still ache a bit, but it's not the "I can't pick up anything" kind of feeling it was. So that's very good.
Still, next time I find out that there's openings I'm going to likely be a bit more hesitant about donating on a whim. Yeesh.
... when the coordinator of the blood drive at work wrote to say that there were openings she couldn't fill at 11:20 and 11:30, I dropped by the collection room and asked if they'd both been filled. The scheduling lady said no, and penciled me in and looked me up and there I was, wah la.
So I filled out my paperwork and the questions that make it so that only 2% of the living population of the world can actually donate blood (uhm, that was just me being cynical, given the questions), and then got my iron checked and it was okay. My pulse was a surprisingly low 52, and I drank my usually two pints of liquids.
They said that they'd try the left arm, which is a hard arm to do, and they pounded it and I pumped my hand, and they said, "Okay, we have it."
And then the technician missed the vein. She then used bare fingers (no gloves, what?) to *TWIST* the needle. Not reposition it, not just poke around a little, she twirled the damned thing, which I've never seen before and never really want to see again, and hit the side of it and the vein gave about a foot long length of tubing's worth of blood and decided that it was a very bad idea and stopped. Just closed one of the valves in the vein and said, "Uh uh, no bleeding to death today."
So they pulled the needle from the left, tied it up in a red ribbon, and then tried for the right.
Prep was fine, etc. Then the technician, already made nervous by missing the other vein, and thinking that I didn't want to see the needle go in (20 some odd years of giving blood, platelets, and white blood cells I'd better NOT be squeamish of needles), she pushed the needle in so damned hard she not only goes right through the vein and out the back but into the connecting tendons of my forearm muscles to my elbow.
I say, quite patiently, "It feels like you've gone right through." As the technician is puzzled as she pulls the stops off the collection bag and no blood comes through.
She pulls out the needle a bit.
"It's still pinching," says I.
She pulls it out a bit more and I feel the very tip come free of the far wall of the vein. "There," says I. The blood flows darkly into the tubes, the vacuum test tubes, and then down to the patiently rocking collection bag. I sit back and freeze in the wind of their damned fan which is blowing cold air at me, but the blood flows and that's okay.
When it's full, which is faster than they anticipated, they let it actually go over the pint mark and finally come over to pull the needle. The ever-generous right vein decides it LIKES giving blood and does not stop. I sit there for nearly fifteen minutes holding my arm up and they check it every two or three minutes as there's now a line forming of people that want to donate, and the vein cheerfully burbles up more blood each time they check it.
Sigh.
When she finally wraps it, she wraps it *tight*. So tightly that I can't even eat with my right hand when I go to lunch. I end up eating with my left hand instead of my right, and when the hour is up for the pressure bandage, I finally loosen it enough to stand it for a while. I still can't really type with the right arm, and an hour later, I finally take both pressure bandages off, and every time I straighten my right arm it *hurts* badly enough that I can't concentrate. I have a few meetings that are actually easier to concentrate on if I don't bring my machine, and from that, I finally go get Jet.
Poor Jet asks me to pick him up and I tell him, "I can't..." and show him my "blood owies" as he calls them, and satisfied by that, he hops into his seat himself and straps himself in.
Jet and I actually had a pretty good evening. John had a church meeting, so we had a really quick dinner of Jet's leftover cheese pizza from another night, and then Jet and I went and got our Crackpot efforts and then got another present for Daddy. That was fun. He was great at just going everywhere I was going and was quite understanding about my not being able to pick him up. Finally we ended up at home, and Jet decided HE was going to wrap Dad's present. He asked me for some instructions, but told me that I wasn't to do anything. Hee.
That was fun.
My arm is much better today, thank goodness. The vein closed itself from both sides, and there's been no seepage, so my arm isn't one Gigantic bruise. Where the muscles connect to the joint still ache a bit, but it's not the "I can't pick up anything" kind of feeling it was. So that's very good.
Still, next time I find out that there's openings I'm going to likely be a bit more hesitant about donating on a whim. Yeesh.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 12:35 am (UTC)thank you for the idea! I don't think I would have thought of it myself...
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 03:32 am (UTC)The next one, who LISTENED when I said "I don't need to extend my arm that far" ... found it first thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 03:33 am (UTC)He got a trainee nurse, accompanied by some grizzled veteran who appeared to be quite competent; but apparently was of the philosophy that people only learn from their mistakes.
So the trainee takes my friend's left arm, and jabs the needle in. "Oops," she says, "I forgot to swab with alcohol." Pulls out the needle and swabs the spot. Is startled that my friend seems to find this painful. Puts the needle back in, pokes around for a while, and can't find the vein.
Then she switches to the other arm. This time, at least, she remembers to swab first. She gets the needle in, and then is assailed by doubt. "Am I doing this right?" she asks the grizzled veteran nurse. "I'm not going to tell you," the veteran replies, "you'll have to check your training manual."
"OK," says the trainee, "hold this while I go get it." And she leaves the room, leaving the needle still stuck in my friend's arm, with the veteran nurse holding the other end of it and looking bored.
Fortunately, she managed to actually get the sample after that; and my friend didn't have to attempt to throw a hizzy fit with a needle stuck in his arm. And, hopefully, the trainee actually learned something and didn't do the same thing to the next person.
And my friend at least got an amusing anecdote out of the experience; so it wasn't all bad :)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 05:49 pm (UTC)I am amused to say that I had pretty much the same scenerio once when having to give blood for a test, but the vet was not quite so callouse or grizzled.
She actually helped the trainee out, when I was unperturbed by poking the first few times. The trainee apologized to me profusely. I offered yet another vein and the vet said, "You really should take advantage when you have someone like this, as you aren't going to get people like this very often."
So between the three of us, the trainee did a tricky hit on a wrist vein instead of the elbow ones as she'd missed both elbows. And it was worth it to see how happy she was with that. The elbow misses weren't nearly as painful as this last one, but enough to shake the trainee's confidence some. And my veins are a pain to get on a normal day.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 05:57 pm (UTC)