I can’t remember the first time I got blood drawn, but I can definitely remember the last time. I walked into a room crowded with instruments designed to draw and analyze blood. I sat down in a maroon-colored padded chair. The chair had an armrest specifically designed to give the nurse a convenient area to draw the blood. An enormous African-American woman with long cornrows walked in, wearing the largest clothes imaginable. Beads were hanging from her hair, clanging together with each waddling step she took. She was holding a small white envelope. After asking how my day was she sat down in a wooden chair next to mine and pulled a 3-inch needle out of the envelope. I’m normally ok with getting shots and blood drawn, but this day was different. She connected the needle to a …show more content…
transparent tube and prepared a bag to hold my blood. Without warning she raised her gargantuan arm, needle in hand, shaking as she brought it over to me. She slowly slinked the sharp metal needle through my skin and deep into the area between my forearm and bicep. I could feel external and internal pain as the needle sank deeper. It was painful, but tolerable enough to sit still and allow the lady to do her job. The blood then started to flow. I saw the tube fill up partially before abruptly running dry. I heard the lady say something you never want to hear a nurse say: whoops. The needle missed the vein in my arm. After telling me she didn’t want to pull the needle out and try again, she started rooting around in my arm, hoping to hit the vein. Unfortunately she missed again, then again, then again. From side to side the needle ripped through the inside of my arm. I knew that she could tell I was angry by the way that I looked at her. It took all the self-discipline I had not to tell her that she shouldn’t be in this line of work in a very explicit way. She slowly slid the needle out of my red enflamed skin and proceeded to stick it back in. This time the pain was much worse. Packing pain on top of pain, this lady was relentless. That dreaded needle was back in my arm and I was anticipating for her to miss again. While being bombarded with apologies, my blood finally started to flow. It quickly ran through the clear plastic tube and filled up a small plastic bag just to the left of where I was sitting. I was surprised to see the dark, rich color of the blood.
I had seen my blood before, but not this much at once. I could see the thick liquid flow and ooze within the bag. Without another word, the lady removed the needle wiped off my arm, and bandaged it up. I was heavily relieved. It still worried me that something may have gone wrong, and I was required to have the needle again. She unclipped the bag from the tube and took it away for examination. The results weren’t going to be in for a week, so we were free to leave afterwards. I quickly took my mind off the incident by playing a game on my phone. Flash forward to a week later: the results were in. Instead of a detailed description of my circulatory system, I got one simple answer: nothing was found. This was extremely confusing. Soon enough, this confusion became frustration. My parents paid an unqualified nurse to root around in my arm with a needle and stab me twice and all I got in return is: “nothing found”. There was supposed to be information about how I can work to grow up healthily, or at least something useful. I was left with two red marks and a nasty bruise on my arm for the next few weeks. I also had to deal with explaining what the marks on my arm were to everyone that saw
them. Every time I looked my wound, it reminded my of the jarring pain that surged through my entire body on that horrible day. From now on I will make certain that the person drawing my blood knows what he/she is doing.
For my first clinical observation, I was assigned to the trauma unit and it was not what I expected it to be. I thought the trauma unit would be fast pace and there would be nurses and doctors rushing everywhere, however, I did not see any of that. Instead, it was quite peaceful and this was probably because my clinical observation was from 10-12 p.m. When I met up with my senior nurse, she showed me a binder that contained all of her patients’ diagnoses, lab reports, treatments, and vital signs, which was a lot to take in because most of the terms she used, I had no idea what they were. After looking at the reports, she showed me a patient who had gunshot wounds on his back and abdomen. I could tell he was in a lot of pain by the tone of
In the book Medical Apartheid, written by Harriet A Washington, the author focuses on the hidden, dark history of American experimentations done on African Americans during slavery times to more present days. Washington’s main purpose of the book is to educate readers about the abusive, deep history of experimentations done on African Americans and to explain why African Americans mistrust American medicine so much and are unwilling to participate in any research or screenings. Although Washington represents many specific cases of abusive experimental evidence—in order to reveal why African Americans mistrust American medicine today—her main arguments were that these experiments were done without consent, that physicians and scientists were
Many of the subject’s were twins, mostly identical. Twins when through the worst of the surgeries, including blood transfusions. Doctors drained one twin of his blood and inject it into the other twin to see what would happen. Blood would be drawn from each twin in large quantities about ten cubic centimeters were drawn daily. The twins who were very young suffered the worst of the blood drawing. They would be forced to have blood drawn from their necks a very painful method. Other methods included from their fingers for smaller amounts, and arms sometimes from both simultaneously. The doctors would sometimes see how much they could withdraw until the patient passed out or died.
"Selena Gibson" the nurse called out after opening the closed door. I stood up and quickly moved forward toward the nurse. Stepping through the door I was ask to turn to the right and go down the hallway. Walking down the long stretch dragging my feet along the way I was scared to find out what the doctor was going to say. Turning to the left the room looked impersonal and cold. I was asked to seat in the chair and wait till the doctor came in with the results.
Identity-“Ones personal qualities.”Identiy is something only he or she can fully define. My uncle says I am affectionate,cheerful, and calm. My grandmother sees me as slim, pretty and sweet. My dad described me as perky, cheerful and happy, my mom says beautiful, gentle, and self-conscious. These adjectives describe me accurately, yet they are only abstract versions of me. Adjectives cannot begin to describe me and I aknowlege these descriptions for what they are, a condensed translation from my outward self to the world. It is impossible for anyone to understand me completely because nobody has experienced the things I have. My mother has never cherished a raggedy doll named Katie and my father never spent hours upon hours making collages and scrap books for his future children. My uncle never hid in the back of a pick-up-truck and traveled four hours to New York and my grandmother has never walked hours in the rain looking for the Queen of England. My identity is something only I can define.
On my hospital bed, I sit and stretch out my arms to relieve some nervous tension. My room is nothing but dull grey walls and the smell of disinfectant. My ears perk up as I listen to doctors and nurses conversing outside. Their voices grow louder and louder as I hear their feet coming closer to my door. I crane my neck towards sounds, only to spot the brass knob of my door turning. My heart begins to race and my breathing becomes shallower. I quickly pull out a pocketknife from under my pillow and slip it into my pants pocket. Stealthily, I roll out of bed, forgetting about the various tubes attached to my body. I wince in pain and tears well up in my eyes as they get yanked ou...
At the beginning of it all I did not know how I would feel. Knowing I’d be working with a medical examiner/detective from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office made me feel nervous and excited. When he walked into the room I realized I’d be working with a 6”2’ man named Det. Timothy Pike who took his job very seriously. Throughout our meeting I would learn all kinds of things, from the directing of blood splatter, how the blood settles in the body after a certain amount of hours, and how death cause is determined. Along with these learnings, I was also able to watch and learn how an autopsy is done. I watched as they cut the body and took out the organs one by one weighing them and making sure there were no abnormalities. I’ve seen things most
So I’m terrified of needles, but they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I am certainly banking on that to be true every time I go to the Blood Center to donate blood, which is about every two months. I don’t like it, but it’s just such a good thing to do. I used to give whenever they would come around in those buses, but I stopped doing that after my first visit to the Blood Center. I discovered that you get much more individual attention when you go to the Blood Center at about seven o’clock on a Thursday night.
“Mitchell! It’s time!” my mom shouted from down the stairs. Nearly in tears at this point, I slowly walked down the stairs, stalling time with every step I took. Dreading this walk toward the kitchen table, I absolutely would rather be anywhere in the world than sitting at the kitchen table doing this. I took my time pulling the chair out and taking a seat. The pad was already on the table along with all of the necessary equipment. I tried telling my mom I didn’t need this, but the pain in my leg knew that was a lie. I knew that in only a few minutes all of this worry would be behind me, but the sight of the syringe and tourniquet were making me sick to my stomach. All of my focus was on the needle as it rested in my mother’s hand.
One Wednesday morning in September of 2015, I slept in until 8 a.m. I was not going to school that day. Instead, I was going to Phoenix Children’s Hospital to get an MRI on my hip to see if there was a tear in my tissues and also receive a cortisone shot to relieve pain. I dressed in comfy clothes, drove to the hospital, and anxiously waited in the waiting room. When the doctor took me back into a room, he had me undress into a gown so all of my skin was exposed below the waist. Carefully, the nurse sanitized my hip and groin with alcohol swabs. Next, she injected me with a numbing medicine so I would not feel the doctor moving the long needle inside of me. After the local anesthetic kicked in, the doctor set up a fluoroscopy that would show
It was extremely small, but it had a seat with a table next to it and a bunch of blood bags and vials on top. That is where my blood would be drawn. I sat down, freaking out as if my whole life was in danger, it was only going to be one needles poked inside of me, but i knew that it would be in my arm for a very long time. I sat there hyperventilating while my mom finally barked at me “Calm down Jaden! It’s not that big of a deal!”. That did not make me feel better at all, in fact it made things feel worse. I started freaking out even more because not only was I about to do something that I absolutely hated, but I was also being yelled and shamed by my mom. After what felt like hours, a nurse finally walked in and noticed that I was shaking tremendously. She started to show concern as if something were very wrong with me, but my mom told her “He is always like this, don’t worry”. Then that’s when things got awkward and more serious. The nurse started treating me like an eight year old and also mentioned that I should not be worried. “It was all be over soon” she exclaimed. She got out a needle that was
My world didn’t end in a bang, or a whisper. But rather, one diagnostic at a time. Ever since I was a just a little dude, my best friends were the doctors and nurses that poked and prodded me daily. My life consisted of hospitals and universities, long drives to fancy medical research places, and those splitting headaches that often woke me up screaming in pain.
I’ve learned to be resilient after multiple trials and tribulations, but there is one thing that sets me apart from many other individuals. About a month after I turned thirteen I lost consciousness in the mall with my family. After an extended hospital stay, several transfers and three blood transfusions I found out that I suffer from a bleeding disorder.
This was the first day of entering a med tech lab. My supervisor was Jeser Leon, a graduate of the University of Belize. We were told we are not sent to work, but to learn. However, the lab tech said, as soon as I walked in, “I will have work for you in a moment.” I found that alarming, but, nonetheless I was eager. The first things I had to do to prepare for “work” was to wear my lab coat and put on gloves. I wasn’t even instructed to wash my hand first. I was told to focus a microscope on a urine sample. I had no idea how to do that since I had very little chance to practice and I had no idea what to look for. I eventually I was shown how to focus a microscope and had practice with the many urine sample that entered the lab that day. Since
We arrived at the emergency room only to find several people already there. Joey was begging me to do something to stop the pain in his back; we waited and waited and waited. Finally, in total anger and despair I set out to find someone to help. The doctor came over, examined him and asked me several questions; it was slowly becoming apparent to me that this doctor did not have any answers. Meanwhile I was growing more concerned about the unknown; what was wrong with my child? The doctor, obviously puzzled by the situation, decided to run a CBC (complete blood count). This took what felt like an eternity, suddenly the doctor became somewhat evasive, almost secretive. I was exasperated, determined to find out what was wrong with Joey’s lab report. I inched my way over behind the curtain, so I could overhear bits and pieces of the doctor’s conversation. They were discussing things like a low hemoglobin count and a high white blood cell count, then I heard it, the most devastating word I have ever heard a doctor say-Leukemia.