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I mean, Blood Test. Get used to it though...

I don’t know what the training of nurses is like but I can’t help but suspect that it’s not heavy on STEM in most countries. Not to say that I’m an education snob, not at all. I’m a three times college drop out myself, but that’s another story.

Over the last two years, failed pregnancies and attempted pregnancies have kept me in a near permanent state of getting a blood test. Phlebotomy interests me, because like my mother I have skinny, uncooperative veins. If only I was skinny on the outside instead. It’s very embarrassing. If I haven’t slept well, drank a lot of water and eaten a little something beforehand, the likelihood of me getting pierced multiple times, fainting, and having to be provided with a cold flannel, juice box and bed to lie down on, is rather high. I have other fun weaknesses too! Like Alcohol Flush Reaction.

So I was extremely interested in the woman who gave me the most successful jab I’ve ever received. It was a few months ago when I was hospitalized for a long, long day, due to another ectopic pregnancy. It was already resolving itself. The embryo which had encountered scar tissue in the fallopian tube, hadn’t been able to push through it to the uterus, and had tried to embed itself in the tube instead, had duly been ejected into the abdomen. It was already being reabsorbed into the body’s general material by the time I’d started bleeding. The body is truly amazing. While I didn’t require further treatment or a drip, the blood tests to monitor hormones and such would be frequent throughout a day of tests and waiting.

I was disposed to like the nurse straight away. Unlike other staff in disposable masks only, and none too careful about it, she was wearing a full face shield and floor length, super-light plastic coat. It can’t have been comfortable to work a shift like that, and it was reassuring to see the effort being made. She dismissed my little prepared spiel about my shitty veins outright, which I also found rather charming. She was older, almost elderly. Certainly far past regular retirement age. She would be able to retire on a tidy government pension for nurses in British Columbia but I believe she’s one of the those rare, lucky people who experience a calling.

I didn’t pry but she was clearly from a former Soviet country. Not to get political but I’ve encountered hundreds of nurses over the last two years and the best had been trained in former Soviet states, Cuba or China, and that can hardly be a coincidence, can it? Since she had ever-so-briefly examined my arm and declared that my veins weren’t the problem, I was naturally compelled to pay close attention, despite the tablet of Benzodiazepine I’d been offered, and had greedily swallowed. From a slight height above the inner crook of my elbow, nimbly and without the slightest hesitation, she launched a needle straight downward into my arm, and it landed plumb in the vein, all while talking continuously about her beloved and useless grandchildren. I barely felt anything.

Every other nurse I had interacted with during the last two years had told me to put pressure on the spot where blood was drawn from to prevent bruising. It seemed unimportant to me, compared to the reasons for blood tests, but I’d done it anyway. This incredible woman took my hands in hers, looked me in the face and asked me to do her a favor. She said, without apology, that she’d have to take blood from me two, three, maybe four times throughout the day. Would I put pressure on this spot, for both our sakes?

Memorizing scientific jargon is not my forte. I don’t remember the technical terms that I’m sure she used correctly, but I remember the narrative. She told me that when your skin and vein are pierced, your cells naturally move immediately to begin healing them. This instant healing makes it increasingly difficult to draw blood multiple times, and increasingly painful for the patient. It’s always best to stick with a cooperative vein rather than hunt over the body looking for others, so, she explained, if I could put pressure on the spot to prevent it healing over, drawing blood will be easier for both of us.

It didn’t matter whether I believed her or not, or if she was scientifically correct or not, because the reality of my experience is that she didn’t hurt me unnecessarily.