Blue Band

You know what I cannot believe is that the Citadel of Cleanliness, a medical center, sterilizes everything except the tourniquets their phlebotomists use to pull blood.

I woke this morning fasting and usually that does not bother, I mean I wake every morning fasting only this morning I could not eat until I made it to the University hospital and have my blood drawn. The blood drawing is the result from the medical appointment I made last week. The blood draw will allow my doc to then proscribe a better prostate shrinker then I am currently using. Like I said, any other morning fasting doe not bother me this morning it did, cause I could not eat I felt dizzy and like I as going to pass out, a little, I cannot believe I am such a histrionic wuss.

Since coffee was out and my usual breakfast of either a bean burrito or a tamale and hot peppers was out as well since I had to have the blood drawn fasting I had an extra half hour this morning so I was way early as I left the house. I was so early I caught one of the early trains which go straight o the University of Utah and up to the medical center. The morning though dark was lit by the Harvest Moon which sat like amazing egg in the Western sky. I got on campus about a quarter to seven and up to the Outpatient Lab by 7:00. Of course the place was almost deserted, one lady which I mistook for a cleaning lady, or some other housing support services. After a few minutes she walked over as asked if I was there for lab services, I said I was and she said the lab would not be till 7:30 a.m., but she would try to see if she could find some tech who would pull my blood because I was there and ready.

About a quarter after 7:00 the blood staff started filing in and they looked as groggy as I felt with no coffee or food in me. One finally noticed me an asked if I was the name of the file she held in her hand. I was the only one in there who else could I have been? So she had me come over to the window and I laid out my arm and she wrapped the tourniquet found my vein and sucked my blood, two vials. I looked away for some reason this mornings extraction was a bit more uncomfortable then usual. Her name was Brenda, pulled the needle and placed the cotton ball on the puncture and I dutifully held my arm so the cotton stayed in place. A few minutes later I was on the train heading into work just two hours late. Luckily, I had worked at least two hours over the weekend at my Friday meeting.

Later on in the morning as Tory and I were arguing over who was going to take a lunch, I backed my power chair away from the desk to look in my backpack and there on the floor was the rubber tourniquet that Brenda had used in my arm. I somehow must have escaped the medical center with the tourniquet laying on my feet no one noticed. I picked up the band from the floor with my hook, when Tory germafobe indicated how filthy the band was and visibly backed a way from the blue rubber band and started her dry heaves. I shrugged and held the tourniquet at arms length and wonder how many, dirty, infected arms this band had been round and the last one it had been round now was mine.