Word count 569

                                                Bill Tope and Doug Hawley

  

I sat on a cold plastic chair with a little arm rest on either side, awaiting my med tech. Into the small white room stepped a twenty-something woman in burgundy scrubs and with a long brown ponytail.  On her arm was a plastic tote containing filled and unfilled test tubes, labels, markers and the like.  

“Mr. Raines,” she said, not looking at me, “I’m Sam, and I’m here to draw blood for your lab work. Do you faint at the sight of blood?” 

 I blinked. “Not yet,” I replied.   

Next she fished around in her tote and turned up a large plastic syringe topped with the biggest needle I have ever seen.  My eyes grew wide.  

“Wh….what size needle do you use?” I stammered.  

She replied, “It’s only a 21-gauge. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.  Horses never complain.”  I saw her smile, or was it a smirk?    

“Did you used to work at a veterinary?” I asked next.    

She narrowed her eyes at me.  “Who told you that?” she demanded. “That was supposed to kept secret!”   

I must have blanched, because at last she smiled, said, “Gotcha!”  

Sam couldn’t seem to find a viable blood vessel; every time she plunged that huge needle into my right forearm, it turned up dry. “You’ve got teensy little veins,” she remarked after the fourth attempt. “Let’s try your other arm,” she said, moving around to the left side.  

When I asked pompously whether she had ever done this before, she slowly shook her head no, her ponytail flicking back and forth. “No,” she said. “I didn’t even finish my training. The hospitals were so in need of staff that they hired me ahead of graduation.” I closed my eyes and sighed, but she smiled again, at my expense. Another gotcha.  

While she drilled holes in my left arm, I glanced at my other arm and saw that my right forearm had assumed the color of red wine spilled on a white table cloth.  

She paused the torture for a moment to remark off-handedly that I had maybe experienced “a little bruising.”  When I made a face she added, “You’re not a fashion model or anything, are you? I mean, this won’t put you out of work, will it?”  I shook my head in resignation.  

Finally she succeeded in getting her ccs of blood and wiped my arm with alcohol and began getting her things together. I shook my misused arms and asked, rather unkindly, “Was it good for you?” Her lips formed a tight pink line, but she said nothing.   

As I rolled down my sleeves and prepared to depart, she turned back and said, “I don’t know anything about your personal habits, Mr. Raines, but if you have marijuana in your system it will throw off the blood tests and I’ll have to draw more blood.  When I blanched a second time, she pointed at finger at my chest and said again,“Gotcha!”. 

Just before she left, I slid out of my chair and onto the floor.  She immediately came back to check my vitals which were normal, but while I was on the floor my eyes rolled back into my head.  She went to get help.  When she came back with her supervisor, I sat up and said – oh you can guess.  “Gotcha”. 

I’ve been told I need to find another health care provider. 

                                                                   The End

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