Needles and Pins

A few weeks ago at work a strapping gentleman fainted right in my phlebotomy chair. People get faint all the time, but this guy insisted he was fine through a cold flop sweat until the moment he dropped down completely unconscious. Fortunately I had the armrest down in front of him, which prevented him from somersaulting straight to the floor. And then a few seconds later he came to with a jump and a deep breath, like I'd just woken him up from a nap in class. It was pretty crazy. I don't think anybody's ever gone out like that on me before. At least he didn't go catatonic, which happened a few weeks before to a patient of my poor lab science extern. That was much more frightening. I thought the lady might have been having a stroke.

Yesterday I drew blood from a physician who was remarkably strange. When I escorted him to the restroom and told him we needed a clean catch sample, he looked utterly confused, so I elaborated that he needed to use the provided wipe to clean first. He looked even more confused, then said, "So I clean...the meatus?" I had no idea what that was so I said yes and left him to it, then ran to my coworkers and asked for some quick Googling. It was revealed that the meatus is indeed the urinary opening. The things you learn!

Today my coworker was drawing blood from a young kid, and tried to play it down by asking if he'd ever had a bee sting. He took us by surprise by saying, "Yeah...in the head!" My coworker tried to keep going. "Well, it hurts less than...wait, did you say in the HEAD?" It was awesome.

I've started to take work for granted. I should try to do that less.