Friday, September 18, 2009

Bloody Papermate


I went in for routine labs yesterday. I am not paranoid about seeing my blood. No.big.deal. I'm a little paranoid about seeing the needle go in but yesterday seeing my blood made me sick... but I'm so glad I watched...

My lab is in a really swanky part of town so even the labs are new and nice. Each person has their own private cubicle with cushioned chairs. This was going to be a breeze.

Not so. The technician kept saying, "you have little vein"... "baby vein". After digging around he found one that might work. Ten minutes later, and three vials, he realized that this wasn't going to work. The vials were not even 1/2 full so he did what all good technicians do...
Opening up the vials, he poured one from the other to make one full vial of blood. I figured, he's doing this where someone can walk by and see, so I guess it's okay.

I look over and what do I see... the man has a paper*mate pen in one of the vials. He dropped something in there while he was pouring one to the other. Immediately an alert went off. Ink and my blood. Hmm... no.
He finally got some help to fill up one more vial and I whispered to her and the other technician while the first was out of earshot, "Can I ask you something?" They smiled, "sure".
I then asked them if it was a big deal that he opened the vials and stuck a pen in... the looks on their faces was answer enough. They immediately said that they would be retaking my blood.
Good. Done. Get me out of here.

An hour later I walked out of there, weak and disturbed. After being called to a back room with a lead supervisor, I was told that this man would be written up and all these other things that made me hope he wouldn't find out it was me! Oh vey.
My uneventful blood work turned into a drama. I'm sure this man will learn that Paper*mate ink and blood don't mix.

2 comments:

Becky said...

First off...love the header picture.

Second...WHAT THE HECK? What on earth was the guy doing fiddling around with the vacuum vials? I'm so glad you turned him in. That is just bizarre behavior.

It reminded me of this time I had to take my nephew down to the department of health to get his immunizations (I was babysitting him and his folks had just gotten divorced and the shots were free there which helped out his poor working mom). Anyway, we get there and are ushered back to a strange room where there were syringes laid out on napkins marked with sharpies as to what types of immunizations they were. That should have been my first warning...the second was when I asked if it would be okay if I held him and they acted like that would be a problem. The woman behind the desk said, "JUST HURRY UP...I've got to take my diabetes shot!" and started clawing her neck as though she was a desperate druggie and needed a 'fix', while the other woman jerked my nephews arm up and injected him with the shots.

I left so shaken, worrying about what kind of slipshod operation they were running in that place and if it had been safe. They were reported AND read the riot act by my sister-in-law the next day, and I'm pretty sure will NEVER handle things in such a way at that place again.

The Daily Bee said...

OMW - That is so scary. You really have to be careful now days.

In my office building, they give out legal marijuana. The problem is, the type of people that are coming in and out of that office look questionable AND they are bringing in plants and growing it... which is illegal. Can't grow and distribute at the same place.

To make matters worse, they've lined the halls with cameras... hmm. Makes you a little edgy.