I was touched, and a little envious, that everyone else at the infusatorium had a buddy or two today. Two patients each came with two friends and everyone else had a spouse or a pal in tow. Chris has come with me once, and my folks came with me once; other than that, all my visits have been solo.
Today I was El Cootina, The Amazing Human Pincushion! First the nurse accidentally sent the tube of blood down to the lab without my label on it. Nope, can't just tell them it was mine; we had to start over and draw new blood. Then back to the infusatorium where it took one, two, THREE sticks to hit a gusher. That's partially my fault. I have a hard and fast rule that they can stick me as many times as they need to, but they cannot go fishing (move the needle around). I was a gracious good sport about it all, figuring I am banking some goodwill for the future.
And now to the day's good news: It's a bird, its a plane...no, it is a bird! Local falcon watchers celebrated the arrival of the year's first peregrine falcon chick on Earth Day. http://blogs.indystar.com/falconblog/. Here at the Villa, I refilled the birdfeeders yesterday and we are enjoying many new visitors. I need to invest in a good bird book; other than woodpeckers, robins and cardinals, I can't identify many of the birds. There is a nest in my maple tree that the Hoodies believe is home to a Cooper's Hawk. I'm not sure; at any rate, it hasn't cut down on the chipmunk, bird or squirrel population here.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Five-Stick Day
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2 comments:
First, a bird book rec. The National Audubon Society puts out one called "Field Guide to Birds"
I have the eastern region for North America. It's a good book for the layman. As far as your five-stick day. Is the infusitorium unable to do a
CBC check with a finger stick?
(I'm assuming that is what they are checking here.)
Our doc's office does it that way.
It's obviously much less invasive and painful and gives your veins a break from something that can be done from the finger. When they do the stick, do they leave a shunt
in so your infusion can be done without another poke? If they don't, you should ask them. Not only is it less pain, every stick is a possible infection risk. The less, the better. Please excuse my backseat advocating but sometimes these little things can make your day a whole lot easier. As far as not letting them fish around. I don't blame ya. Even Tim with his high pain threshold hates that and I almost fainted once when a nurse did that to me. Not worth it!
The blood draw checks about 38 different things, grouped as Comprehensive Metabolic, Hemogram, and Automated Differential. (That's the chemo blood draw; the monthly draw is a 4-page report!) I've asked about getting it in one stick. The problem, they say, is that it takes so long to get the results back from the lab (usually 20-40 minutes), that it would clot and they'd have to stick me again anyways. I may ask them to try, though, since it's becoming a bit of a problem.
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