Work It Part II

I don't know what it is but I have had another crazy work experience. I don't think this story is as traumatic as the first one, but I had to share (sorry if you have already heard it.)
Another duty I have at work is that I get to draw blood on patients. I LOVE this part of my job. Ask my college roommates, they think I am so weird, but sometimes I would make Denae (who worked in a hospital and also we took a medical assisting course together in high school) steal a couple of needles for me. No, not to shoot up with, but to practice sticking each other. Don't knock it till you try it, there is some sort of weird adrenaline rush with being able to do this. Anyway...
So on my schedule is a new patient who hadn't started doing our program yet (hence being very overweight and on the old side... no offense if you are either one of these conditions). She needs to have lab done but before this I talk to her more about the program and she seems like a decently nice person. I take her into the lab and take a look at her veins. She has no visible or feelable veins in her arms, so I look at the hand. Oh... she has the old lady roly-poly huge hand veins. These kind of veins can either be your best friend or your worst nightmare. For me, they were my worst nightmare. I stick the needle in her hand and as soon as I did, her vein rolled over to Texas, there was no way I was digging that far to try to find it. I apologized and explained what happened. She wasn't too amused, but she said, just do my other hand, she was still pretty lucid at this point but starting to breath in a deep way. I try the other hand and the same exact thing happened. I have to make a small disclaimer that no matter how good you are at sticking, sometimes you just can't get it, and with her I just couldn't. I have a policy with my patients, it is two and out, if I ever miss more than twice I will not try again, and will get someone else to do it.
Back to the story... so she sees that I can't get the vein. At this point I again apologize and start to say that I will grab someone else to do it. Before I can utter these words out, she starts breathing were-wolf heavy. She says to me, "is there someone competent here that can get my blood?" Ouch. I already feel dumb that I have missed now you are going below the belt. I wanted to say "sorry that you have fat old lady gross veins", but instead I try to calm her down. I ask her if I can get her some water and if she is ok, etc. She ignores me then starts with the weird heavy breathing again and tears are coming and she says "you are pathetic, my primary care always gets me on the first stick" mind you that this isn't in a mild tone, she is yelling at this time. I seriously wanted to grab a needle and stab it through her hand at this point but instead I left the room to grab Dwight for some help. He, along with the whole office could hear what was going on. He had already started to make his way in to save the day. I caught him in the hall and told him what had happened and that she is freaking out! Then from the end of the hall we hear this non-human cry shouting "$*%-Damn her... my hands!" ... Whoa! Okay, I will be honest, yes it hurts to get poked by a needle, but from the way she was acting, I couldn't tell if I missed her vein or if I killed her only son. She was crazy!!!
I decided not to show myself at the crime scene. I let Dwight take care of it. I did hear from him that she is never going to let me touch her again. I'm ok with that. Infact I don't really want to ever see her again.
This experience hasn't scarred my love of drawing blood, infact I had another "stick" I had to do about an hour later and was successful. I just think it is so weird how some people react and treat others. This incident has actually made me want to be a better person. I will never ever treat a human being the way she did, no matter what... ... I guess unless they have killed my only son that is.