Have needles, will travel.
2005-02-28...10:57 p.m.


I did it!

I did my very first blood draw, and it was a complete success. My tourniquet was on properly, I hit the vein in one shot, and got a tubeful of blood from Carmen. I remembered to take off the tourniquet BEFORE removing the needle, thus avoiding the potentially embarassing situation of spraying her blood all over the classroom walls. The one student we were both most afraid of missed the vein of the student she was trying to draw. I got drawn twice - there were not enough people with good veins to go around only once, so I volunteered for a second go-round. Carmen did pretty good on my left arm, although she did keep lifting the needle while she was getting the cottonball. Not bad, though, it just stung a little. The second girl that drew me had my right arm. Our instructor told her to "jab it," so I freaked out and tensed up when she came at me with the needle. She managed to do a good job anyway, and I came away with the right arm stinging only slightly more than the left. All in all, a good night in class, and I'm dying for next week to come along so I can practice some more. Christine has already offered up her veins for my amusement, er, practice, and I may take her up on it. I went ahead and picked up the rest of my basic supplies, so I have everything I need to do a blood draw. I have my gloves, tourniquets, needles, vaccutainer, tubes, alcohol swabs, cotton balls, and medical tape. It's all packed in my little toolbox, which, by the way, seems way too little now that I have everything crammed in there. I even picked up a little bottle of Germ-X (it's like Purell - it was all I could find in a small bottle) hand-sanitizer. Hee hee.

the last trail...the next path

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