I Suck BLOOD!!!
I am now an official vampire! I did my first stick (phlebotomy) on a real human today. Poor Scott. I did get him on the first try, though. :-) I also took two tubes of blood, not just one. (Red and lavendar so we can use them in the blood bank and hematology classes.)
In Blood Bank class, I needed a tube of my blood drawn because I don't know my blood type (and the Scott wasn't able to get any out of me because my veins are deep and roll around like bee-bees in a box car!) So, the professor, Amy, says she will draw my blood. Ties off my left arm. "Wow. Not much there. What do you people normally do with you when you give blood?" My reply, "I always say that I'm a hard stick and if they need to, they can draw blood from the back of my hand as I have really really good veins there. They say, 'I can get you', and put the tourniquet on my left arm, poke around with their finger, then switch to the right arm. They palpate around it and then take blood out of my hand." Amy laughed, "You really are a nightmare stick!" She just took blood out of my hand.
So, Scott stuck me in the arm and Amy stuck me in the hand. NEITHER wound has a hematoma! Usually, I look as if I've been beaten with a baseball bat! It pays to be in careful hands (Scott didn't hit a vein to actually draw blood though... and I barely felt the needle, the guy is good!) and good hands.
I did the typing (front and back) on my own blood and I'm O+. :-) I suppose I should go donate blood now. Ha!
Then I stayed after class to work on Hematology class work - white cell diffs! OOOO!
In Blood Bank class, I needed a tube of my blood drawn because I don't know my blood type (and the Scott wasn't able to get any out of me because my veins are deep and roll around like bee-bees in a box car!) So, the professor, Amy, says she will draw my blood. Ties off my left arm. "Wow. Not much there. What do you people normally do with you when you give blood?" My reply, "I always say that I'm a hard stick and if they need to, they can draw blood from the back of my hand as I have really really good veins there. They say, 'I can get you', and put the tourniquet on my left arm, poke around with their finger, then switch to the right arm. They palpate around it and then take blood out of my hand." Amy laughed, "You really are a nightmare stick!" She just took blood out of my hand.
So, Scott stuck me in the arm and Amy stuck me in the hand. NEITHER wound has a hematoma! Usually, I look as if I've been beaten with a baseball bat! It pays to be in careful hands (Scott didn't hit a vein to actually draw blood though... and I barely felt the needle, the guy is good!) and good hands.
I did the typing (front and back) on my own blood and I'm O+. :-) I suppose I should go donate blood now. Ha!
Then I stayed after class to work on Hematology class work - white cell diffs! OOOO!