Getting blood drawn

I'm still in Halifax hanging out, napping, reading, it's pretty great.

I did have to get blood drawn yesterday since it was Monday so I choose to go to the Bayer's Rd clinic. I thought about going to the one at the Halifax Infirmary but that one is technically for people who have clinic that day and I didn't want to show up at 8am only to have them send me elsewhere. I thought Monday morning's in Springhill were busy, I should've expected that Halifax would be worse. It was a zoo. It was like being back in Toronto.

I waited for over an hour to go in and then waited some more by the urine bench. I told the phlebotomist to take the blood from the back of my hand because it would be easiest even if was more painful. She looked at my (still scrapped up) hands and decided that was a bad idea and that she should poke around somewhere else. After looking for a bit, she choose a tiny little vein in my right arm, said, "I think this vein will roll on me, I'm not sure if I can get it but I'm going to try."

To which I responded, "Nope, I don't think you will, my veins always roll, you should go to the back of my hand."

Her: "I think I should try there, even though I don't think I'll get it, it feels like a rolly vein."

Me: "Just go the back of my hand."

Her: "I'm going to try, it'll be better if I get it."

So she tried.

And big surprise to all, the vein rolled, and even with much digging, she didn't get any blood.

Her: "As I expected, the vein rolled."

Me: "OF COURSE IT DID, GO ON THE BACK OF MY HAND"

Her: "I think I"ll go on the back of your hand."

She then filled up two gloves with hot water, like water balloons, set them on my hand to get the veins to pop, and called in the student to help her with the vials. Everything she should've done at the beginning. It worked wonderfully. One more poke, five filled vials later, and I was out of there.

Getting blood drawn from the back of my hand is more painful but at least it only takes them one easy poke so that's why I prefer them to just do that from the start. It saves them digging into my scar tissue for 10 minutes. If only they would listen to me.