Sunday of Lesley

A Little Needling

Oh, I forgot to tell you how the dreaded blood-letting went last week!

If you recall, I was apprehensive about getting blood drawn because of my eensy-beensy-aren't-they-adorable-and-petite veins.

When the nurse saw all the prick marks on my arms and hands she said, "Hmm...work or recreation?" Heh heh. I wanted to shoot back, "Incompetent nurses, actually," but she was holding a needle and I didn't feel that was perhaps very wise.

I warned her that I have difficult and uncooperative veins (I always warn them; they never listen), and she said that I was in luck because she had a new kind of needle that had been created for children and older people with bad veins. It's called a butterfly needle, and it's tiny and has some mechanism that allows you to keep it under the skin and move it around to try to hit a vein (rather than pulling it out and rejabbing. Over and over and over.). Which, as it turns out, was great because it took her a couple of tries to get a vein. I TOLD HER SO!

But anyway, she used what I like to refer to as The Miracle Needle on me, and I NEVER FELT A THING. No exaggeration! She took 8 vials of blood, and normally it stings like the dickens when the blood is being pulled through the vein, but no joke, I didn't feel it at all. Yay new needle! Yay advances in medicine!

I got the results back and met with my doctor. He said that my cholesterol is fine (yay! oatmeal and nonfat mochas! See, I do my part), and my blood sugar and blah blah blah is all fine, but my blood pressure is high. Not as high as it was, certainly, but he said he'd put me on some medication for a couple of months and we'd see where we are then. There's nothing in my lifestyle that would warrant high blood pressure, so it may just be hereditary. Bummer.

He put me on a beta blocker and I'm not enjoying it so much. It's making me very tired...I go home after work and fall asleep on the couch! Plus it's slowwwwwwed me down. Working out is difficult because I can't get my pulse up very quickly, so I kind of run out of steam.

And oh! The dreams! Crazy, vivid dreams and nightmares! Fun!

But he said that this should only last a week or two. I hope so; I have rehearsals every day starting next week, and I'd like to be all settled in with my drugs by then.

Isn't being a grownup fun?

Posted by Lesley at October 14, 2004 11:59 AM