Next.
Oct 31, 19:42
I’m at the doctor’s today and he wants to do some blood tests. OK I say, not wanting to meddle in anything serious enough to warrant an inspection of one’s blood. I am led down a hallway and into a small waiting area. There is a coat hook attached to one wall, from which hang white plastic cards with rounded corners and large black numbers printed on one side. Mine says 13, and as he hands it to me my doctor says “and here’s your lucky number.” Keeping in mind the sorts of things one is waiting to find out when having blood tests done, I’m not sure what to make of this.
I wait in a seat across from the number hook. I can see into a medium sized room filled with medical apparatus and lots of test tubes, a few of which are on the floor. This is the Sampling Room. Inside a middle aged woman with dark hair is discussing what I’d like to say was medicinal marijuana usage with a shorter same-aged woman in green scrubs. But due to the distance and not wanting to be obviously eavesdropping I can not say for sure.
An orange-shirted man appears around the corner and enters the waiting area. He poises himself just at the threshold to the Sampling Room and stands awkwardly, obviously not sure of the proper protocol for having blood taken. The man glances around, seeing the number rack on the wall and taking one for himself, and then moving back toward the empty chairs beside mine. He looks like he is about to sit down but he does not and instead looks in my direction as if to ask what to do. All I can think of is to shrug. In his hands is the examination form, a giant grid of cryptic descriptions and little bubbles just waiting to be filled in to indicate acceptance. I have one too, and for a good five minutes I had considered filling a few extra circles to see what would happen. And then a voice calls “number thir-teen” from the next room and I know I am up.
Inside this room is the woman in scrubs. She is probably no more than four feet six inches tall and reminds me eerily of a high school friend’s mother. I take a seat as instructed and the rest goes to plan except for me substituting my left arm for right since I am right handed and the use of my right arm is so much more important to me than my left. As she draws the number of tubes required (two) I wonder how job postings for these sort of positions read:
WANTED: Responsible persons not afraid of sharp pointy objects or sticking them into others looking to obtain a position in the health care industry. Must be comfortable around blood and other bodily fluids. Several years experience in related fields (?!) required. Vampires and other deviants need not apply.
To the woman’s credit she did an excellent job as I felt only the slightest prick and at this point several hours later there is still no discoloration or bruising. One time I was not so lucky and I actually ended up saying I had gotten in a fight instead of having a bad blood drawing experience to test for something I didn’t want to talk about anyway.