Thursday, June 12, 2008

What is worse then a blood draw?

After what started in a disastrous morning, and turned into a horrible day, I now had the luxury of going to get my blood drawn. I found the only thing worse then having my blood drawn is waiting in the "victim staging" area to have it done.

I can honestly say I have never done any drugs in my life because of my needle fear or being caught by my dad (waiting for the just-say-no crew to crown me with a tiara and ribbon) smoking a joint or now for my struggling company to actually reinstate drug testing.

Back on track..I get to this horrible place walk in, and now instead of checking in at the window, you need to do it via computer after swiping your credit card (does this make anyone else uncomfortable)? I sit amongst the rest of the "victims" breaking out in nervous hives, wondering when my name will be called. I sit there and do calculations in my head..if she is clenching the bottle from that yucky orange soda stuff she still has almost 1-hour until they pull her back for that gestational diabetes test. Eliminate pregnant lady #1 and that leaves 4 remaining "victims". How long can it take? 2-3 minutes per person? Half-hour later I recalculate my standings. 2 have gone back, haven't seen either come back, did they die? Maybe another 10-minutes? 40 minutes later my name is called and I practically run to the extraction chair! Meanwhile the snotty extraction lady makes a rude comment about my insurance paperwork but I try to be as nice as possible as I don't want this to be more painful then it already is. While sitting in the "Moment of Truth chair" being questioned on every ailment under the sun, I am trying to breath without looking as if I am being sent to the gas chamber. I clinch my fist trying to make the best vein possible so I can get out of there in a flash. As my 2-minute drill ends I want to run back in the staging area and tell the remaining "victims" "see I wasn't the one holding-up the line", but I look around and nobody is there. Why couldn't I have shown-up 40-minutes later when nobody was waiting, including pregnant lady #1?

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