Funny Experience

I had a funny experience at the doctor's office today. Okay, it was funny to me, but probably not the person I was laughing at internally. So I had my annual well woman visit with my doctor this morning. All women look forward to this event. Thank goodness it's only once a year. But truthfully, it's not that bad for me. I have had unpleasant experiences in the past, but my new doctor is awesome. And she's nice and cool so that makes it better. Her nurse is great too. So at the annual visit, you not only get the yearly poke and prod, but you usually give a urine sample and some blood for labs. I didn't give blood last year because my gastroenterologist does it every year and his visit is a month before this one and my doctor has access to all his stuff so she can see what the lab results are. But his blood draws and labs aren't done after a fast so she thought this year we should go ahead and do labs since I fasted last night and this morning. I was interested in getting the labs done this year because my last fast and blood draw labs were two years ago and my results for cholesterol were "borderline". Which I was shocked about because I exercise a lot, eat pretty healthy and at that time I was eating Cheerios every morning for breakfast which is supposed to bring your cholesterol down. But what I learned today was it wasn't my LDL (the lousy number) that was high. It was my HDL (the happy number) that was low. That would have been good to know two years ago! So I was glad to give blood today so I could find out next week the results and see if I need to get to work on increasing my HDL.

So I happily walked back to the blood drawing room. Someone walked in there right before I did so I sat down and took the opportunity to read some of the book I brought with me for any potential waiting times. I am reading Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy. No, I'm not pregnant and don't plan on getting pregnant. But I have been wanting to read her book for years now because I heard it was really, really funny. And it is. I was crying from laughing by the third chapter. So I sat down in the middle chair and began reading. Very quickly I was giggling reading the book. Not shortly after that a nurse escorted a slightly over middle aged gentleman into the blood drawing room. He sat down right next to me. I looked at him and said hello. He said hello back. I went straight back to my book, giggling and all. As soon as he sat down, I heard him make a long, deep sigh. I just figured it was a normal sigh, you know, mid-morning, sitting in the waiting room kind of sigh. Then I heard it again. And again. I then realized, these weren't sighs. This man was breathing in deeply trying to calm himself down for the needle he was about to meet. I decided to ignore him as to not make it worse for him and got back into my book. Of course, the giggling started again. I'm not talking about out loud giggling, just low, more of a big smile and sometimes a shocking gasp kind of giggling.

The phlebotomist called my name and I sat my book down on my purse and walked over to the chair. I sat down realizing my feet didn't touch the ground. So I swung my legs a little big. I noticed the heavily breathing gentleman look over at my legs. I quickly stopped thinking that was probably not helping him. I struck up a conversation with the phlebotomist. I'm sure she doesn't get asked often how she is doing or how things are going. She's stuck back in basically a storage closet all by herself. So I try to be nice and make her smile. She deserves it. No telling what kind of people she encounters all day since she's the needle lady. And I don't have any problems with needles. I am actually proud of how well I am when it comes to blood drawing and how easy it is for them to find my blood vessels. So I don't have a problem with needles or watching my blood being drawn. I know, I'm weird. Hello, I was in the Army. Do you know how many shots we get when we join or just to go overseas? I also gave plasma in college for years for extra money. I even made a comment to her about how fast it was flowing into those little tubes. She agreed. I'm sure we were not helping the man who was now trying to turn his entire body away from our direction.

So she was all done with me and wrapped me up with hot pink tape. We said our goodbyes and have a great days and I got out of the chair to go grab my purse and book. She then proceeded to ask the gentleman waiting if he was ready and he let out a very loud "NO!" I thought at first he might be joking but then I saw his face. I walked out the door as he was walking toward the chair so I missed his experience. I can only imagine what it was like for her to draw his blood. I'm just glad my experience with her was easy. As I drove away from my doctor's office, it crossed my mind that he was a grown man and completely scared to death of that tiny little needle. I just don't get it. And yes, I snickered at that too.