Drilling For Blood

God knows I hate to complain. But, I find plenty to whine about when I have to go to the doctor. No matter how much I love my Dr. Cutiepatootie, I still can’t help feeling out of sorts after I’ve been to see him.

First, I have to make an appointment to go to the lab. Even when I inform them that I have to come in for a fasting blood sugar, among other things, they always seem to want to give me a 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. appointment. That amounts to at least 12 or 14 hours of fasting, which can lead to a bout of low blood sugar, but the worst thing is that I don’t get my morning coffee until I get home, and sometimes it’s too late to bother.

When I finally get there, the two techs in the lab are a husband and wife duo. The husband is far and away the best at finding the right vein. The wife, not so much. In fact, she couldn’t find a vein if it were sitting on the outside of your skin. . Last Tuesday, my appointment was earlier than usual, 9:00 a.m. All right. I can do that. Coffee by 10:00. But, by the time I was called into the lab, it was 9:20. And, worse, hubby-tech was busy taking X-rays, so I had to make do with wife-tech. After she stuck me a couple time, coming up dry, she threw up her hands and said,” I’ll just have to let hubby-tech do this. I refuse to stick anyone more than twice.”

Then, she turned to the gentleman sitting in the other chair, and proceeded to stick him twice before deciding to let hubby-tech have him, too. However, she did say she could stick his finger and do a couple of tests with that little bit of blood. Even with the automatic sticker thingy, she had to punch two of his fingers. I was feeling sorrier for him than me, by now, thinking, “And, all this torture BEFORE coffee!”

By now, it was after 9:30 and hubby-tech came in and looked a little irritated when he saw that she had made two patients wait for him, and just outside, there were about three more cooling their heels. In fact, he was so far behind, he apparently didn’t want to take time to find my vein, so he stuck one of the veins on the back of my hand. Those veins are easy to see, and I don’t know why she didn’t try that.

Finally, I was free to go home and wait for the next round, scheduled for two days later at 9:00. I thought, “Well, at least it won’t take as long with the doctor. He’s usually pretty much on time and it doesn’t take him long to give me the lab results.

Silly me. Dutifully, I arrived at his office at 9:00. His nurse called me into the examining room at 9:20. This was more like it. By 10:30, still sitting there, I had read every issue of “Country Time” in the room, plus all the children’s books and certificates hanging on the walls. I was contemplating climbing up on the examining table and taking a short nap, when he finally came in, full of apologies, and seeming not quite so cute, at this point. One of the partners was out of the office and he was covering for her, blah, blah, blah.

I wanted to snap, “Can the apology. Let’s get to ME.” But, I didn’t. I smiled and assured him that I understood. (My eye.) I was out of there in less than 10 minutes.

I’m supposed to see him every 6 months, so I can usually get away with making it a little later and asking his nurse to call me with the results so I only have to make two appointments about once a year. But, now and then I think it is probably a good idea to see him in person, so I endure two visits in a week, and end up feeling like a martyr.

Here’s the thing. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after waiting a total of two and a half hours without my morning coffee, on top of suffering the abuse by the tech tag team, he could at least find something WRONG.