Thoughts about my First Ever Blood Draw

I haven’t made a post in quite awhile because I honestly have been so so so busy with grad schools applications, work, and life in general. I figure it doesn’t matter too much because I don’t really know if anyone reads these anyway and because is also just for me to dump my thoughts. Time to get back to it though!

*Warning: I talk about blood and stuff that goes with a blood draw like needles if you couldn’t tell from the title.*

I’m also not going to post any photos because that seems gross and not necessary.

Backstory

For those of you who do not know, I don’t ever go to doctor. I have gone when something got REALLY bad (turn attention to my IBS post) but that is it. Yearly checkups? HA. Not going to the doctor hasn’t been a personal choice, it was my parents never wanting to bring me but now that I am an adult I have decided to try to change that, especially since there is not a single day where I do not have terrible joint/bone pain. Seriously, this joint pain started 7 years ago when I was 15 and has only gotten worse, which I highly doubt is normal for someone my age. Well, lucky for me my dad has a bunch doctor friends and one night one of them was over to watch a football game. I decided to be strategic and started complaining that my knee hurt (which it actually did because it hurts all of the time). My dad’s friend checked out my knee, realized that my dad has ten million health issues that I could have inherited, and told me to come in to his office so he could order blood tests. I went into his office after work a couple days later, the tests were ordered, and I went to get my blood drawn the next morning.

Why the blood draw was going to be an issue.

Blood draws should not be that big of a deal, right? People do them all of the time, right? The answer is “yes” to both of those in regards to a normal person. I am not normal and here is why I knew it was going to go poorly before I even got there:

• I had no idea what to expect since I have never had blood taken before.
• Although I have no problem with seeing blood and no problems with needles, I do have a GIANT problem with veins and the location in the arm where the blood gets taken. I do not like feeling veins or feeling blood in my veins. Just thinking about veins is making me squeamish. Probably another reason why I hate my super veiny feet. Story time: My sister took some class for some EMT thing and she had to practice taking blood pressures. Well of course I was the blood pressure test subject and since she was new to the whole thing, it took her a very long time to get a reading. Every time she would take my blood pressure, she took so long that I could start feeling my heartbeat and blood in my arm veins (I don’t really know how to describe it…) and it would start triggering my anxiety, I would start getting queasy, and I would begin flipping out. Every. Single. Time.
• I had to get 8 vials of blood taken. EIGHT. For my first time getting blood drawn. Go big or go home, right?

The Blood Draw

I get to the blood clinic place, sign in, and wait for the phlebotomist to call me to the back. I was waiting for awhile since it was 7:00am and everyone else was trying to get their blood tests done before work just like me. The phlebotomist finally calls me back and I let her know that I have never gotten blood taken before and immediately she was like “Oh boy… we have 8 vials we need to fill…” and then she tried her best to reassure me that it would be okay.

Honestly, this lady deserves an award. She was so good, nice, and helpful. I was just a terrible patient.

Anyways, she grabs my left arm, starts looking at it, and begins slapping it because I guess that makes the vein more noticable (?). Secretly I am hoping that she will choose this left arm because my right arm vein freaks me out more. She says “This is a pretty good vein but let me check the other arm” and I immediately knew I was done for. She goes to the other arm, doesn’t even touch it, and is like “Oh yeah this is the one!” much to my dismay.

Then she gets the needle and is telling me not to look and is being so nice while having conversation with me. But the problem wasn’t the needle. I did not care about that part and was fine while she inserted it. The problem was feeling the blood in the vein and that had not started just yet. She is commenting on how I’m handling it so well and in my mind I’m thinking “Oh just wait…”. Regardless, I am not looking at what is going on but then I start feeling the vein and immediately start freaking out. I’m trying my best to calm myself down which causes me to stop talking to her and this poor lady is trying her best to make me feel better. I was doing pretty good holding it together until around vial 5.

At this point I am getting all fidgety, the color is visibly leaving my face, I started sweating A LOT, I am on the verge of a panic attack, I feel nauseous, and I could feel myself starting to black out. This poor lady is trying her best to calm me down and go as quickly as possible. Right when I was actually going to lose it and could literally feel myself about to throw up on her, she exclaimed that she was done, took the needle out, and bandaged me up. I’m still trying to not pass out and still trying to not puke all over her while she gives me water and is still being super nice. She has me check that my name is correct on all of the labels and then instructs me to give a urine sample after I sit in the chair for a few more minutes because I guess I looked really bad.

I finally feel okay enough to stand, go do the urine sample, hand the cup to her, and ask which way the exit is. She then says “Are you SURE you are okay? Quite frankly, you do not look good at all and the color is still missing from your face”. Seriously, I felt like crap and I must of looked ten million times worse but I honestly just wanted my Cheerios so I said I was fine. She still continued to try to get me to sit back down but I saying that I was fine and went to my car to eat. I sat in my car for awhile eating my Cheerios, made sure that I wasn’t going to throw up, and then went on my way.

I did not experience bruising right away but I did get really bad bruising about 5 days after the blood draw, which I personally think is a long time but whatever. This bruise looked BAD. Easily the second nastiest looking one I have ever had. It was so big and so dark. I feel as if I looked like a drug user which I definitely am not so that wasn’t good. What was even worse was that every time I looked at this bruise I got nauseous and lightheaded again because I immediately started remembering the whole blood draw process.

Also, the bruising appeared around September 24th… it is October 13th today and there is STILL a bruise. I mean, it is definitely improving because its significantly smaller and the color is all green now but it is still kind of there and I just want it gone. I am ready for this blood draw chapter of my life to be over.

Blood Test Results

Good news: everything came back 100% normal. So no autoimmune diseases or any of that!

Bad news: I still don’t know what is wrong with my joints.

Honestly, I feel guilty that my ten million blood tests came back perfect because I have the worst diet in the world and I don’t exercise. There are so many people that try their hardest to be healthy and it doesn’t work which is not fair. So, although I still experience pain all of the time, I am extremely grateful that my body is somehow taking care of me despite how bad I am at taking care of it due to my stomach issues. Definitely a wake up call to how fortunate I am and has made me try a little better with my diet, within my limitations at least.

Lessons I learned:

• I know people can’t control this but try not to get 8 vials of blood taken at one time. Especially if you have never had blood taken before.
• A nice phlebotomist can make or break the experience for problematic patients like me. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if my phlebotomist was mean.
• People who have to get blood taken on a regular basis or stuff injected into them through arms veins are amazing. I seriously don’t know how they do it.
• I never want to have blood taken again. It is a good thing that I am type A+ which is the second most common blood type so I do not feel guilty for never donating blood.
• I really really really hate feeling my own veins.

Please be nice to your phlebotomists, people. You never know how many people like me they have to deal with.

-Kassie