Friday, August 10, 2007

Our Physicals Nightmare

A little history is on order about our physicals: last year, I called around trying to find a doctor's office who actually had a notary on staff so we could "kill two birds with one stone" with our physicals we needed from China. Much to my dismay, every doctor's office I called did not have a notary on staff which I thought was a little strange until I happened upon the "new clinic" that had a notary! Hooray! So we go there and there were NO cars in the lot, but we proceded anyway thinking it was our lucky day not having to wait! Well, after a huge wait (when nobody was there), we were excorted back. There, the fun began! We felt like we were getting a physical from a 4 year old! Everything that shouldn't have happened, but a few major things I must share that happened:
  1. When gathering the appropriate needles to collect blood samples, the nurse dropped the exposed needle on the floor and then proceeded to "blow if off" so she could still use it!!
  2. After sticking me SEVEN TIMES to collect the blood, the eighth time she used a butterfly and was successful until she TRIPPED over the tube and yanked it out of my arm as my blood "painted" the room! Yes, it hurt!
  3. Even though Brad has veins the size of waterhoses and has NEVER had trouble giving blood, 4 people tried to collect Brad's blood unsuccessfully so they brought in a guy who thought he was so cool and literally started "sweeping" under Brad's skin to hopefully "poke" a vein of Brad's!!! This is where Brad finally told them to stop because he thought he was going to pass out.

So, this year for our physicals we went to our regular doctor (minus the notary). Since both of the kids needed shots for their well-visits soon but were terrified, we thought it would be a great idea to take them along to let them see how painless a "shot" really would be and eliminate their fear.

So, we all pile into the room, see the doctor, give him our physical forms to fill out and then he sends in his nurse to take our blood. The kids were really curious so they were looking on with great anticipation while Brad went first. He was sitting calmly on the table, as she tied the little rubber band on his arm, and she politely asks him if he is squeamish. He answers back that he isn't, but I notice that he looks a little unsettled. She inserts the needle and Isabella calmly asked him if it hurt. I say very cheery and quickly, "No, look at Daddy! It doesn't even bother him!" As soon as I looked up at Brad, his face went white, his eyes rolled back in his head, he slumped over and fell down on the table!!!! I quickly asked the nurse what is happening and she says she DOESN'T KNOW!!! She then tells me to get the doctor as Isabella asks me if Daddy was dying! I jerk open the door and scream for the doctor who was literally 4 foot away from me and he came in and tried to wake Brad up. I scurry to get the kids out of the room and all Elijah can say is, "Can I get a sucker now?" The front desk entertains the kids with candy and desk supplies while I ran back to the room where Brad starts asking "what happened?". I wanted to kiss him and kick him at the same time! So, I yelled, "Don't EVER do that to me again!" He quickly came out of it and they watched him for a while until they felt he was okay. They quickly took my blood and we left in a haze! As we walked out to the car, Isabella loudly stated, "Shots ARE bad!"

Brad said that the last thing he remembered thinking about before he passed out was the guy "sweeping" for his veins last time and then he woke up!

Update: TB tests were all clear, of course!

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