My Veins

If you're a trainee as a medical technician (or, one supposes, a vampire) and you turn my arm over and look at the veins lining the underside, you get very excited. There they are, practically bursting to get out of the skin, long, prominent and bulging. So you get the needle ready to -- in the delicate phraseology of the trade -- "stick" me and you push it beneath the skin and, oops, the vein has moved. For the sad reality is that all those beauties are "runners" or, as a minority of techs say, "rollers." I've known this for years and it keeps me from going to the Red Cross and contributing during blood drives because a pint is absolute agony -- I can spend the better part of a morning lying on the pallet as a poorly stuck vein slowly yields its dark red contents. It flows through the plastic tubing like, as my good friend MH once said of wine at a wedding reception, "molasses." I'm feeling nauseous by the time it's done and can scarcely do justice to the post-donation plate of cookies.

This comes up because with J. as my handler, we took a taxi through the continuing snow two days ago to Dr. M's office, where after she also praised my progress, she turned me over to one of her techs -- dressed, I suppose for professional reassurance, in scrubs -- to draw my weekly blood. She too marveled at the veins and then utterly failed to draw blood. Out came the "stick" and off she went in search of E., the practice's master technician. E. stuck me again, drew off four vials quickly and I was freed, ready to walk over to Broadway for lunch with J. We went to Deluxe, a nice soda fountain-type place at Broadway and 113th, but something was different -- its exterior sign had burned, happened -- our waitress later said -- two nights before at 2AM. That must have been a sight -- a neon sign afire in the New York night.

Dr. M is moving in a couple of months. We are staying with her, but E. alas is not going, she says. Here's what she wants me to do: take a bit more coumadin because the levels are a little low in the blood, continue diuretics for another week to reduce leg, ankle and feet swelling. No biking outside or jogging as long as I am taking the coumadin. Go see a cardiologist for an ecocardiogram as soon as the antibiotic is finished. Airplane travel taboo for at least a month (deep vein thrombosis concern.) See a neurologist and rehab doctor for followup appts. Hold off on driving a car for a month at least. No drinking, except a sip of beer or wine with dinner, while on coumadin. Continue PT and OT at home. See her again this coming Friday to check coumadin levels. So yes, another stick. This time let's hope we go straight to Mr. E.