Flashback Friday

Oct 10, 2008

I love Marta’s Flashback Fridays. Can I steal it? I sure hope so, cuz I am gonna. I know that this should probably include pictures, but my old albums are in a box somewhere, so I really can’t promise you much.

Besides, this first flashback hardly counts as a flashback at all. Cuz it is just from a week ago. But with a memory like mine, anything I can remember at all is good. So last week I had a doctor’s appointment. No biggie. They had to draw some blood, so I sat in their big blood-drawing-chair and waited 10 minutes or so while the nurse typed my information into the computer. This took a while because her fingernails were so long that she had to type each letter one - at - a - time. Finally she was done, so I let the girl stick a needle in my arm. It always makes me nervous when someone younger than me starts coming at me with a needle, but I guess it is just something I am going to have to get used to.

So, she started drawing my blood and I didn’t watch. I never look when my blood is being drawn. It’s not that I’m squeamish, it just seems safer. But this was taking so long, and though she left the needle in my arm, I could feel her clicking things in and clicking them out and eventually I just got curious and looked. The needle was attached to some kind of cartridge that a vial was inserted into. And while I watched, the vial filled up with blood, so she pulled it out and snapped an empty one into the cartridge. And suddenly I started to feel a little dizzy. And nauseous. I immediately looked away, but it was too late. All at once I felt my body go sort of numb and limp and I thought “Oh my. I think I am going to pass out.” And I did.

I have never passed out before. I have never been a dainty girl, by any stretch. Sturdy, that's me. I've always thought of fainting as something reserved for the dainty girls; the kind of girls that men like to take care of. So I kinda always thought that passing out would be so very romantic and feminine, like something out of a romance novel. But it wasn’t. It was pretty crappy. When I woke up again I was sweating like crazy and I felt SO sick. I was really worried that I was going to throw up. And I really, REALLY didn’t want to vomit all over their tiny little lab.

Finally some lady brought me some orange juice (I have no idea what happened to the tech who was drawing my blood)and I felt better right away. I think I can safely say that it was the best orange juice I have ever had. Anyway, soon I felt better, and I left. That is the end of the story.
So... Flashback lesson learned? Fainting is not for the faint of heart.