Infusion Time “Fun”

Anyone want to take a wild guess as to how many times i was stuck last Friday?

anyhoo…so i went on Friday for my 6th (time flies when u’re having fun) infusion.   The head nurse (andrea) walks over and starts trying to get my vein to corporate (applying heat, tapping it, flicking it).  It looks like it’s going to be a good day but then she goes in and… has no luck….the vein is just not on this infusion business and has better things to do i s’pose.  She calls over someone else…she nails it!  woohoo!!  we are on a roll here.  This time because it’s my 6th one, they need 3 vials of blood for whatever blood work they have to do.  The chick says that she’ll wait to get blood after i’ve gotten the medication. (skip ahead 2 hrs)

Andrea walks over and says, “lets get some blood and send u on ur way.”  She takes the syringe and whatever other apparatus they use and inserts it into the IV, pulls back on the plunger and – NOTHING!!  She thinks that the vein that we’re in is kinda tiny, so she’ll have to go in somewhere else. (skip ahead 45 mins)

By this time, both my wrists and forearms are sore and 2 other nurses have seen me.  Remember i said that they needed 3 vials of blood?  they got 3/4 vial!!!!  My blood just didn’t feel like flowing.  At the end of it all, Andrea said that they will just take it and do whatever testing they could with what they had.  I was so happy to hear her say that because i really wasn’t in the mood to try yet another time.

so…at the end of it all, how many times did i actually get stuck?  7!!  twice for the medication and 5x for the 3/4 vial of blood – sooooo NOT what I signed up for!