If you have ever studied any human anatomy, you will know we are pretty much the same under the hood. However, there are a multitude of recorded variations and abnormalities from the standard model. I once had a physician, a D.O., who would frequently give shots and draw blood himself. He called the veins in the antecubital fossa – the area where they normally draw blood – in one of my arms, alien veins. He went on to state that only about five percent of the population had my particular venous configuration. Heaven forbid I should adhere to a convention like bilateral symmetry.
Several years ago I was in a doctor’s office and they needed blood, well… because they always need blood. That particular morning there was a nurse in training following the regular RN around. The RN prompted the trainee to draw my blood. She tried three times, and never hit my vein. It was at this point that the RN stepped in and said that perhaps she needed to try it. She did, changing my arms, and hit a gusher on her first try.
Today I was at a doctor’s office again, specifically for them to draw blood as they need to track certain parameters with a medicine I am on. I am not normally a chatterbox, but for some reason with nurses, nurse’s aides, etc. I occasionally get talkative. The young lady this morning was a nurse’s aide. As we walked into the exam room where the blood draw paraphernalia was laid out, I remarked, “So you are my vampire this morning or should I say phlebotomist?” She laughed, replying that her boyfriend called her a vampire. As I sat down I noticed a tattoo on her arm. Since most folks with tattoos like to talk about them I asked her about it. Turns out it was Mt. Rainer and she had gotten it during a memorable trip she had taken with a girlfriend. Somehow we switched to her career as a high school athlete. Among other things she had been a Brazilian wrestler, a sport I had never heard of. She briefly explained the sport to me as a cross between jujitsu and Greco-Roman wrestling.
From the way the room was set up, I proffered my right arm. As she was sanitizing it prior to the needle stick, for some gawd awful reason, I told her the story of the nurse in training sticking me three times, unsuccessfully. Yup…wrong move. She stuck me, but the blood only dribbled out very slowly. Given that I am on blood thinners, a red cascade rivaling Niagara Falls would not have surprised me. After a minute or two, she gave up on that drill site, put a band-aid on it, and moved over to the right a bit and another vein. Same deal, just a very small trickle of blood.
It was at this point, she decided to get another “girl”, her words. I apologized profusely for jinxing her with my story. I repeated my acceptance of blame when the new vampire/phlebotomist came in. Since the interior of my right arm was covered in band-aids at this point, I suggested that we use my left. Up popped a vein the size of I-64 as it enters downtown St. Louis. One quick stick, less than a minute, and she had two vials of my precious life force.
As I left I apologized again for jinxing her, and assured her it was no biggee… All the while, thinking to myself that it was that damn alien that one of my ancestors must have mated with… which might explain more than my elusive veins.
And so it goes.
Sounds like you should start with your left in the future. And damn those alien ancestors. 😉