At 9:52am today I was talking to my dad on the phone, rambling on about who knows what, when I look up at the calendar and say, “OH! Asher has a 10:00am lab appointment, gotta go!” CLICK. (sorry Dad!)
I frantically call the best neighbors in the whole entire universe (I say “universe” in case there are aliens, because my neighbors are even better than ET). And the Best Neighbor in the Universe comes right over to watch Miles while I half change Asher’s pj’s and run out the door yelling, “THANKS, be right back!”
We get to the clinic and rush up the stairs only to find out they are WAY behind. So we wait. I feed Asher random (old) snacks from the diaper bag, and try to keep him from wanting to crawl all over the lab waiting room floor. I’ve woken him up from his morning nap, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He thinks it’s cool we’re on some random adventure.
We watch other unsuspecting toddlers file into the lab with their families. Asher seems to think it’s all quite entertaining. He doesn’t know that we’re about to willingly allow a random stranger to jam something sharp into his tiny little finger. He doesn’t know that this random stranger will then squeeze the tiny tip of the tiny finger over and over to push his tiny blood out of the tiny tip and into a tiny vile (or vial?). No, he doesn’t know this. So he eats snacks and smiles at strangers.
They call his beautiful little unsuspecting name and I gather our things, fumbling around, picking random snacks up off the nasty couch and floor.
We enter the blood-taking room and I’m thinking, “all of this to see if he has any traces of lead in his blood, that’s what you do to a one-year-old???…just in case… Why is this something we have to do on a regular basis? Why can’t I request it?….like after I catch him eating paint from a house that’s a hundred years old?…Okay fine, I guess we live in an old house, but I really don’t want to do this….”
(Stop and remember now that this particular baby has been through the medical RINGER. So every now and again I question….”what really is necessary?”)
So anyway. I take a deep breath and try to tell myself this is a very important test. I tell myself that there is a chance, (somewhere in all the heavens) that Asher is laden with lead and I should probably know about it.
(Even though I know he’s fine and am yet subjecting him to more random torture.)
Okay, long story short. The crabby-blood-taking lady comes in and says, “NO, the first chair!” and I promptly sit in the first chair, and then I continue to feed Asher snacks, trying to distract him. That totally annoys crabby-blood-taking lady and she recommends shelving the snacks. Um…okay… Let’s do this. She pricks the tiny finger. Tiny finger sends OW! messages to (sort of) tiny brain, and tiny baby SCREAMS and cries crocodile tears. It feels like a very long time, crabby lady pinching my son’s fingertip over and over and over, trying to fill up this vial….
and then…..
I’m not kidding….
she frigging DROPS THE BLOOD CAPSULE!!! It spins through the air, splashing tiny blood everywhere…on Asher’s pants…on my foot….all over the floor.
No apologies. Just, “well, good thing he’s a good bleeder….let’s start over….”
I am currently not such a big fan of the lab lady. She needs people skills. And some coordination.
So she starts over, gets the ever-important blood and we leave, Asher still crying his head off. Me trying to hold the little, tiny gauze strip over the little, tiny hole in the little, tiny finger.
And then he surprises me again. We get on the elevator and start riding through the building with random strangers. Random strangers that make Asher smile….and smile….and giggle…. and smile. He’s over it.
And I am not. I’m still thinking about all the ways I’d like to tell random, blood-taking lady to do her job. But I suppose I’ll get over it too. Just not quite as quickly as Asher.
Update: It is driving me crazy that I’m not sure if it’s vile or vial…google it and both words are used… bothering me. If you know, please clarify. Doesn’t vile mean something awful and vial mean the tube thing? ugh… mush brain strikes again.
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Some people should not be doing the jobs they’re doing… although, perhaps she was just having a bad day, like maybe her cat died or something and she found out five minutes before she came into the room. Then she sees you with this cute little boy and wonders why some people have it “all together” why can’t she. So she’s bitter and grumpy because your life looks better than hers… I’m off on a tangent…
I think that’s why God made babies so that they have the memory span of goldfish – otherwise, we’d all be in trouble for all the stupid things we’ve done to our kids. Right now, they’ll just have pictures of themselves in sailor suits and sure they’ll smack one hand to their forehead and curse us for lack of style but hey, at least they don’t have to remember wearing it right?
BTW, it’s Vial not Vile :)
Whats her name? She’s going down.
Abra: She might have dropped the vial, but she was vile in doing it! :)
It’s definitely vial.
I would’ve had a hard time resisting the urge to smack that woman!
Hahaha.This post made me laugh out loud. And wince.
And cringe. And laugh some more.
That vile woman with the vial? Duly vilified.
The blood goes in the vial and the lab lady was vile=)
Giving this a tad more thought (as I wandered aimlessly down the aisles at Target) it occurs to me that, JUDGING is OUTGROWTH of INSECURITY. It also BREEDS INSECURITY in those who are feeling judged. So it’s a vicious cycle.
Next time I’m at Target I’ll try to just focus on what I’m buying…. :)
I was SO going to say what Tiffany said.
Vial = what she used.
Vile = what she did.
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