The 12 O'clock Appointment

If needle sticks make you queasy, you may want to pass this blog post by. It’s ok. I don’t mind. I’ll give you a second to rethink it before you keep reading. If blood bothers you, then maybe go organize your purse, or go read that article on Hermeneutics you’ve been meaning to read. Either way, you’ve been warned. Here we go.

So today is September 18, 2024. If my calendar is correct and I don’t have any schedule changes, I don’t have to have another needle stick for the next 13 days!

Here is a secret between you and me. I have never liked needle sticks. But fortunately, they’ve come along so infrequently that they were never much of a concern. So, when the occasion did arise, I would show up, take a seat in that chair with the arm that swings down once you’re seated. That arm thing looks like it’s designed to help the lab person stick you easier, but I have a theory that it’s really there to block your escape.

Once trapped inside, I would dutifully lay out one of my bare arms across that flip-down part and watch a person in scrubs or a lab coat, wipe my skin with a two-by-two inch alcohol swab, then unsheathe a sharp needle and stick me with it in the bend of my arm. I watch as my blood fills up their little test tubes and sometimes, when they’re finished filling all the tubes, they pull the needle out and ask me to hold the folded gauze tightly over the hole where they stuck me. I press down hard as instructed because I am a very compliant patient if you are the one with the needle. I wait while they attempt to loosen a long segment of coban to wrap around my arm, you know, to hide the damage. I think if a lab person asks for your help to hold the gauze, they should give you a discount for helping. Who can I contact about that?

So anyway, all that to say I didn’t have many more needle sticks than the average person as I aged, and not enough of them to complain about the sting of needles puncturing my skin.

And now – the dawn of a new day.

Once my bloodwork revealed I had Leukemia, needles from Huntsville to Birmingham began to salivate. They mobilized a front and plotted together to activate “Operation Dartboard”, target, Gwynn’s arms. They launched their attack on every blessed blue-blooded, sweet little, harmless, I never did anything to you, why are you sticking me, vein in my scar free arms. They initiated a scheduled, and often unscheduled attack on my innocent upper extremities, all the way from my antecubital fossas to my wrists. And mercy, did the blood flow!

Four vials of my blood filled their test tubes over and over again. Five vials sometimes, eight vials a few times. But when they filled twelve vials, I asked the lab tech if she left enough blood behind for my ventricles to at least fill up for the next ventricular squeeze! I would like to go home with a reasonable ejection fraction. Her response, “I hope you had a good breakfast.” Jeepers! I could have had the old timer’s breakfast from Cracker Barrel with extra biscuits if I had only known you were going to initiate bloodletting.

And by the way: a Wikipedia excerpt says: “The practice (of bloodletting) has now been abandoned by modern style medicine for all, except a few very specific medical conditions. In the beginning of the 19th century, studies had begun to show the harmful effects of bloodletting…”

So there!

Oh yeah! Let’s not forget the armored Philistine Goliath of needles they used for my bone marrow biopsies! That was plural in case you missed it! More than one! A needle in your sacrum? What kind of mind would think of that?

And as of today, I have not even been admitted to the hospital for my stem cell transplant. Heavens to Betsy! I know they are going to put a port in my chest and they will get all their… I mean my… blood from it, but I know Operation Dartboard ain’t over by a long “shot”.

So I invite you to smile if you think of me during the next 13 days because unless there is some covert, undercover assault on my needle-free schedule, my blood is all mine and nobody gets any of it but me.