Years ago I suffered from a nasal infection and my doctors had me give blood and urine samples to be analyzed for a diagnosis.
I showed up at the lab early in the morning. I hadn't eaten, as requested. A large, alarmingly unkempt phlebotomist called me into a little room and handed me a plastic jar to pee in. I went to the bathroom, peed and returned to the small room to have my blood drawn. I guess I didn't screw the top of the pee jar on sufficiently, but I didn't know that yet.
I sat in one of those special chairs with the arm rest that protrudes from a very clinical type of seat that is used specifically by labs to draw blood. My sample of pee sat safely on a counter next to me. The phlebotomist asked if I was afraid of needles? I said no. This was a lie. I also failed to tell him that the sight of blood made me light-headed. All of this would become clear to him in about 4 seconds, when he thrust a jagged telephone pole of a needle into my vein with what I recall as vigorous enthusiasm. Just as I felt as if I were powering through the pain, I peeped a look and to my horror I saw what appeared to be a geyser of blood spouting from my arm like a breaching whale. I instantly felt faint. My ears rang and I felt my body falling fast towards the floor. I instinctively reached for any support from my surroundings. In the midst of all of the chaos I managed to grab the jar of urine that sat next to me on the counter. For some reason I tossed the jar to the phlebotomist. It was then that we both realized that I had not in fact fastened the lid to the jar of pee properly.
For a moment, I passed out. As I regained consciousness, I saw an empty jar lying on the floor and the poor man who had been drawing my blood covered in my pee. Two nurses quickly came into the room and helped me stagger to a recovery room which was unfortunately located on the other side of the waiting room.
So a room full of people, who were were already anxious about having their blood drawn, watched in horror as two nurses conveyed me through the waiting area, visibly drenched in urine and covered in enough blood to to be alarming, like some officer wounded in battle.
The nurses sat me in a chair. Handed me orange juice and a chocolate chip cookie. I was fine. Just a little embarrassed.
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| A delicate French onion soup in a thermos |
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| A spicy tomato soup, carrot ginger soup & tequila in thermoses |
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| Cream of asparagus saffron in small thermos |
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| Clam chowder and vichyssoise, obviously |
