Friday, April 24, 2009

Trauma in my Antecubital Space

Ten days ago I had my annual physical, complete with blood work. I don't mind getting blood drawn at a lab or at a hospital, but I'm never thrilled to have it drawn by a nurse who spends most of her day weighing patients and taking their blood pressure.

This blood test hurt. HURT. BAD.

When it was over I asked the nurse what to do to prevent bruising. I can never remember. Do you leave it alone, or put pressure on it? Bend the elbow or keep it straight? She instructed me to keep firm pressure on it for at least 3 minutes, which I dutifully did.

Not that it helped.

Or if it did help, how bad would it have been?

Here is a picture of my bruised arm, it all it's glory. I want to point out to you that this blood test was 10 days ago. Also that this is not a picture of the area where the needle actually entered my arm — though there was bruising there and up my forearm too. This, however, is a picture of the side of my arm.
I think I can safely say that I have never before had a bruise that almost reached my elbow!

Ouch!

9 comments:

  1. Ouch! If I were you, I'd think about emailing that picture to your doctor and suggesting that they invest in some training or whatever they need to do to save their patients' poor arms!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yikes! Seriously, I think that some people don't know how to take blood well. And then it hurts really really bad. Nice bruise :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yikes, that does look painful! Once I had to take Abby in for a blood test when she was a baby. The lady that did it was totally incompetent. It took FOUR tries to get any blood and she was screaming and crying so hard... I was crying. I was so ticked!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yikes! I would really consider showing THAT bruise to your doctor! Totally wrong!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I really should print out a picture and take it in with me--I'm supposed to go back in for a quick visit (no bloodwork!) in the next week or so.

    Amy--we had plenty of blood test trauma with CL when she was a baby. The worst was one time when they wanted to do this test that required several blood tests over 24 hours. Unfortunately they timed it so that those 24 hours were on the weekend, when the good phlebotomists are out having a weekend. The lab tech who came to do the last blood test tried 2x on each side, and couldn't get any blood--and I told her it was too bad, she had to leave. It was a really bad mommy moment...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ouch is right. I always have blood-drawing trauma. Then I always remember later that I was probably dehydrated (I'm horrible at drinking enough water) and always wonder if that would have helped.

    It was fun to hop over to your blog and "spy" on you a little. Beautiful family!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh how I hate having blood drawn!! And I don't even have horror stories like these!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ow, that looks like it hurt. When I gave blood it didn't bruise like that. Maybe it was because I did splits with the missionaries that same day and I was being blessed.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mahon, I'm quite certain you're right. Why didn't I think about upping my righteous behavior first to ensure a good/painfree blood draw???

    ReplyDelete