Medical Maintenance week

Its that time for all good little cancer survivors to get their medical maintenance out of way. And it starts with blood work. It always starts with blood work. Since my cholesterol is high I need to fast before I go in. This creates a problem with work as my boss has many early morning appointments planned. He suggests that I have blood drawn later at lunch time and then I can take the rest of the day off. I say sure, but, so you know, I can't eat or drink anything until I go so maybe I will not be of much use to him. He says maybe I should go early and get it out of the way. He's nice that way.

I get into the lab and see no familiar faces. *sigh* I get called up to a Korean man who is hard to understand. I explain that he will need to take blood from my hand. Not, what is that called? On this inside of your elbow? That place. The tech's don't like to take blood from the hand if they can avoid it. It hurts more and tends to bruise, a lot, and no one wants that. He quickly grabs my arm, puts a tourniquet on it and starts tapping it to bring up vein. 'There,' he says, pointing to a faint vein in my arm 'doesn't look bad' 'No there,' I say pointing to a throbbing purple vein in the middle of my hand. 'It hurt more there' he says. 'No,' I says, 'It hurt more when you dig around for that tiny vein and then end up taking blood from my hand.' It's my standard line, they all get it and do it my way. This guy though, he starts tapping around my wrist and finds a tiny vein on the thumb side of my wrist. Totally ignoring the throbbing purple vein in my hand that's looking more like a big juicy worm about now.

It bruised terribly and still hurts days later. I miss my black gal with the Jamaican husband. She no longer works there.

Oh hey! Guess what? That place on the other side of the elbow? It's called anicubital space!

There has to be a funnier name.

How about elbolius?