Got freaked out at the doctors yesterday….
I’d received a phone call from the doctor calling for me to come in and take a blood test. I require regular blood tests because I have been taking a drug, for the last 30 years, that has the ability to damage my liver… Ergo blood tests… When I first started taking the drug, which is for Rheumatoid Arthritis, I had to have weekly tests, reducing over the years to the point where I almost forget I require to take them at all! Hence the doctor’s call.
So, I went to the doctors and made an appointment for a week later. However, during the course of that week I got a role in a film, so I went back to the doctors to change the appointment, which they did.
Alas I never remembered the new appointment until the day after I was due to attend, despite putting it into my diary. My only excuse being my mind was buzzing because I’m writing “Understanding God 2” (working title), the second book of my Understanding God series. Lest there be any misunderstanding, the books are novels not religious texts, they’re supernatural and all that…
Back to the doctors for another appointment, and I was told to phone in the next day and get an appointment with one of the practice’s Nurse Practitioners, which I did.
I was half-an-hour early for that appointment and was greeted with; “You’re having a blood test, which arm?” So, I pointed to my left arm which was the usual place for taking my precious liquid.
On we went, the Practitioner being lovely and cheerful, “Oh that’s a nice vein…” In went the needle, then the tube was put into the ‘bit’ (my technical term for where it went in to the needly bit), another technical term.
It was a dry well for her and she started apologising profusely, muttering about ‘a collapsed vein, which immediately alerted me to the fact that all was not going well… In fact, just alarming me… She then said perhaps I should see a phlebotomist, which I think is a posh name for a nurse who is well versed in the dark art of extracting blood from reluctant veins. She was, in my opinion, starting to get a little stressed. I have no idea why because I was quite used to things not always going as recorded in a text book.
The Nurse Practitioner then decided she would try in my other arm using a butterfly needle, the blood dribbling into the tube, which she decided was not good enough and stopped the process saying. “It’s no good you’ll have to see a phlebotomist…” Packing up everything, including my pinkie finger measure of blood, into the appropriate bins.
She seemed panicked to me and I really was starting to get worried, wondering whether there was something wrong with me, I’d never had this performance at a blood test before…
She ended up giving me a note for the front desk with the instruction to the front desk.
“Please make an appointment for a blood test.” She added the sentence at the bottom of the note and starred it. “NOT ******,” which was her name…
My appointment is due to be made tomorrow and I’m slightly apprehensive, is THERE Really something wrong with me? Oh dear… Oh dear…
Kenneth J. Matthews 