I am full of holes.

And my arms hurt.

For various reasons I have had blood drawn numerous times in the last year or so for lab work. Apparently I have been lulled into a sense of ease and blind trust of lab technicians who draw blood after, apparently, having encountered extremely competent blood-drawing techs (they probably have a specific medical name but it alludes me at the moment and I’m too consumed with my own misfortune to look it up on Google).

Oh, I kid. Well, I have indeed had an appointment with misfortune today, but I am not consumed and therefore perfectly able to look up the information.

Phlebotomist. There. That will be the word of the day.

I know I’m not an easy person to draw blood from. Maybe it has something to do with my smallness, who knows? Like I said earlier, I have apparently been blessed over the last year with highly experienced phlebotomists who have no trouble whatsoever getting their blood samples from my arm.

Until today.

I had a regular physical exam requiring lab testing of my blood. (Also requiring me to eat nothing after midnight last night.) I begin detecting a problem when the particular phlebotomist attending to me takes about five minutes to figure out which arm she is going to try. Then after strangling my arm with the vise-like rubber band she takes another several minutes to actually start the process of sticking me with a needle.

Don’t mind me. My arm is just turning purple, but I’m fine.

No luck. After another try she asks if I’ve ever had to have blood taken out of my hand.

Immediately I start sweating and wondering if I can just ask to come back on a different day when she is not the only phlebotomist available. However, she then decides to try my other arm. (I’ve had phlebotomists try two or three times to get a vein before – obviously not recently – but I have never had to resort to a hand.)

It is at this point, after she sticks me, that I begin to pass out. The thing with passing out is, once you get to a point where you think “The room is spinning. I’m about to fall onto the floor like a rag doll” you really have no energy to speak. Fortunately the lab manager noticed my eyes rolling back in my head and I heard her tell my phlebotomist that her patient is about to pass out.

So, after being removed to a room where I could lie down with a cold paper towel on my forehead, the lab manager comes in to do the deed. And she gets it done. With no problems.

(This after asking me if I am dehydrated which I think I am not as I’ve had two bottles of water since I woke up three hours ago. The water is actually sloshing around in my empty tummy.)

I have learned three things from this:

1. Drink about a gallon of water before having blood drawn.

2. I must always from now on specifically ask the phlebotomist attending to me how much experience he or she has before they poke me, and warn them that I am a tough stick and do not wish to be an experimental pin cushion. I will have to demand that the manager with the most experience take my blood.

3. I am belatedly extraordinarily grateful for the phlebotomists I have encountered at this same lab over the past year. They are obviously wonderful, talented, and the best at their job. (Where, oh where, did they go?)

After this ordeal I had to return to my doctor’s office to get two shots (two of the many, many injections I have received in my precautionary medical care for Africa). So, my arms are sore but at least there was no passing out involved.

I have now had lunch and yet another bottle of water. I think I will survive, and can I just mention that I would get shots in my arm all day long before getting blood drawn? Which, I suppose, is a good thing seeing as this trip to Africa requires only one blood-drawing and about 10 different shots. (OK, I think the actual trip requires no blood to be drawn and only one necessary vaccine, but I live in a country where everyone errs on the side of extreme caution, an attitude which has caused me to question so much of the advice I’ve received on the topic of travel to Africa from Americans who might or might not ever have been to Africa. But that is a topic for another day.)