The order from the Neurologist only listed 7 or so items to screen. Okay blood work, I am used to this. Not wanting to waste any sick time I went to my small town hospital during my lunch hour to get the lab work done, there shouldn’t be any crowds at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, no biggie.
This is one of the good things about living in a small college town in the summer. Our population shrinks by ~25,000. The students are gone. Lines everywhere are gone. Residents are in and out of town on vacation or goofing off in our beautiful scenic wonderland.
Nope! They were at the hospital getting procedures done while the town was in sleepy mode. Walking through the front door, I stopped dead in my tracks wondering if I had walked into the wrong place. Am I dreaming? Has there been some problem I don’t know about? Maybe these are just families waiting with their patients.
I fought with myself for a little bit, deciding whether to go back to the office and try on a different day. It didn’t have to be done today after all. I finally decided to wait it out so I registered at the desk and took a seat. Grumpy all the while because I had left my book in the car thinking it wouldn’t take long.
When my number was finally called and I was allowed to go to the lab I sat in the chair and answered the obligatory questions. The technician spent several minutes entering the order in the computer, while I sat across the room, looking on a little puzzled at the time this task was taking. Another technician was called, questions were asked, no answer. Draw the specimen anyway, the answer would come later.
The technician turned her attention to me, and asked which arm I preferred. I am I informed her, she could only access one arm. She nodded, proceed to open her specimen drawer and pull out vials. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10…I stopped counting around 15, wait! The order only had 7 items listed.
“Do I need to chug some water really quick?” I asked looking around in a little bit of a panic. I’m thinking to myself, she’s going to get all that out of one arm? No, no, no,no,no. Now I’m not afraid of much, I had Chemo for 18 months. Needles don’t scare me; Being injected doesn’t scare me. I still see my Oncologist every 6 months but they only take 2 vials. The tech must have seen my apprehension. She said they didn’t all have to be full vials. Well that’s a relief. “Okay, Ready?” “Sure, just do it”. 15 minutes later and 17 or so vials later, it was all over and not a moment too soon. I practically took the catheter out of myself just so I could get out of that room faster. No long good byes necessary here. I heard the technician calling after me to “leave that wrap on there for a while….. we took a lot of blood from you honey…….” Echo echo echo through my hollowed out veins.
My neurologist better find whatever the world she is looking for. Maybe she will find cure for my awful cooking, I hope so. The children will be so happy.
(results: all is well. Mystery remains. Wobble on, Bike harder!)
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