Mono!!

So it was decided that Sean has mono. Lynn called me last night to tell me that. And that Erin and I have to get tested. It's really exciting! Jacque and Lynn were both trying to reach me all day, but when I turn off my cell and unplug the landlines, it's definitely harder for people to reach me. In my case a poor move. Because then I had to drive home so that Erin and I could go to the doctor the next morning. It's not like I didn't see this doctor a few weeks ago for him to prescribe nausea causing anti-biotics and tell me I don't have strep. Now I have to go in again and get tested for the mono. You know that involves needles! I hate needles. And I have to finish Christmas shopping! Grrr...

So we got up early to go over there and Lynn took her sweet time to call. She told the office 1:30pm. At 1:00pm she still wasn't ready to go. Erin and I were. 1:25pm comes around and she yells from her bedroom that she's ready, but we are not waiting any longer. Erin yells for her to meet us there. We get to the doctor's office and sign in and wait for them to call our names. Steve shows up 15 minutes later and asks where Lynn is. He calls her and she tells him that since we left her, she's decided she's not coming. Okay...

So Erin went to the bathroom, so I had to go first. I followed the nurse through the door with the push button lock and into the lab area where whe removes her coat and casually mentions that it is in fact cold outside. Yes, I reply, it is. She sits me down in a pleather chair with a bar that comes down across it like a padded high-chair. She put that rubber turnicate around my upper-arm and starts smacking the inside of my elbow. She grabs two empty vials and a needle. She puts on some rubber gloves from a box that says unpowdered latex gloves. There is a hand-written list taped to one of the bookcases next to me noting important precautions to use so that you don't get pricked by a needle. Perhaps this information will be of use to me! I don't want to be pricked by a needle!

Needle pricks don't have to occur! I stare at the list while she asks for my insurance card and starts writing information down on a clipboard. Always keep your fingers below the needle. I suppose they mean if the syringe is pointed toward the ceiling, but how often do you do that? The nurse always looms over me like a mad scientist when drawing my blood, so technically shouldn't it be above the needle? She slaps my arm a few more times, searching for something obviously besides the two large blue veins at the surface of my arm.

I flashback to the last time I had an IV, in high school. The young nurse called in this older woman, she was about 138 years old, to find a suitable vein with which to prod me. The nurse had told me next time, drink lots of water. I was really dehydrated. Perhaps that was because I was told not to eat anything for twelve hours and I had this incredible fear that that wouldn't be enough time for me to get rid of all the food in my stomach and the anesthesia would result in me vomiting while I was unconscious, causing me to die during simple hardware removal. But drink more water I will.

Five years later I have learned nothing. The nurse unties the rubber strap leaving a large red ring around my left arm and goes for the right one. She begins to slap again. She asks me what arm I normally have blood taken from. Neither, if possible, I think. I flash back to junior high which was the last time I remember having blood drawn. Right before the tears started welling up in my eyes I looked down at my left arm where the school nurse was about to jab me with that 10 inch needle...

"My left arm," I said quietly.

She unties my right arm and goes back to the left one. She reties the strap and begins slapping again. She wipes my arm with alcohol, goes for the needle, removes the cap and says, "Let's see if this one is okay."

This is a very UN-reassuring thing to hear before someone tries to draw blood. I recall that junior high torture... The woman stuck me twice in the left arm, twice in the right arm, and then moved back to the left arm for another jab before she was satisfied. Tears are streaming down my face and Lynn, my mother - the parent volunteer from hell, is yelling at me from across the cafeteria to stop being such a baby. As strangers and friends alike look from her to me and back to the red-headed woman scream at her blubbering daughter, I try to wipe my eyes. I am not afraid of inanimate objects!

I return to the lab room in Dallas as the nurse sticks the needle into my arm and attaches the tube to a vial. I am an adult. I have had much more painful experiences in my life than one prick in the arm and the knowledge that a tiny piece of metal is slowly letting out blood from my arm. I broke two toes this summer and that was far more painful. I cussed and ran for ice when I broke my toes. I cussed some more when close friends and relatives would step on my foot. But tears began to well up in my eyes as the nurse removed the first vial and attached the second one.

I am such a baby. The nurse finally removes the vial, removes the needle and quickly applies a large cotton ball with tape to my "wound" to catch all the blood. I go outside and hold the door as Erin walks in for the same fate. Erin however is not a baby. She had to fill 5 vials of blood for in-processing for the Air Force Academy. She also just gives her blood out for free whenever someone asks. Carter, whatever... Steve and I sit outside for a while and suddenly Erin walks out the door with another nurse following her with a glass of water. Erin's skin is pale and clammy and she looks like she's about to fall over. The nurse tells her to drink the water and for us to wait about 15 minutes until Erin feels better, she passed out while they were taking her blood. Erin explains to Steve and me that this happens every time and that the nurse said that next she should warn whoever is taking her blood that she has a tendency to do that, it scared the day-lights out of her. Erin explained that after she replaced the first vial with the second, everything started to go white, and then she woke up to find that she had almost slid down out of her high-chair, but not quite, because of that delightful bar. The nurse was screaming for help and Erin sits up and apologized. Then another nurse walks in and the first one goes, thanks for coming!

So I take Erin to Dallas with me and we watch this old movie called "Bell, Book, and Candle" with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It is very amusing. We relax and prepare to brave the world again for last minute Christmas shopping. She tells Lynn we will meet her somewhere, which was a mistake. She and Lynn start fighting. We split up. Then we end up at the same store and they fight some more. Then we went home. It was nice.

I'll let you know if I ever find out the results of that mono test.