Giant blood draw #427

I have lost count of how many giant blood draws I have had in this process, but hoo boy, was today ever another one!

Went to the blood draw place and gave them my scrip for the thrombophilia panel. It caused all sorts of muttering. The tech said she couldn't read the doctor's name from the faxed scrip, nor the address, and the doctor's name wasn't coming up in the system so she'd have to type it all in. So I had to stand there and spell everything out for her while she two-finger typed the exceedingly long name. Not for the first time was I annoyed at why Big Clinic can't just officially be called Big Clinic, but rather "Rich Guy Benefactor-Big Clinic College of Medicine, Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility". That's a lot of typing right there with only two fingers - and did I mention she had very long nails that slowed things down even more? Dr. S's name isn't exactly short, either. Then of course these weren't the normal tests, so she had to look everything up on the computer, which caused more muttering but at least by that point she sent me off to wait in one of the blood draw rooms. All of this took an age, by the way. I think I could have looked up a few blood tests a darn sight quicker, but whatever.

She finally came over to me and said "oh, you are going to have a LOT of blood drawn". Meh, I thought. How much can it be? There were only about 9 tests listed (OK, maybe 11), and I've had way worse done. So she started grabbing vials. And kept grabbing. And then grabbed some more. At which point there were at least 2 vials for every test and I said "gee, I guess you weren't lying about it being a big draw". God, I hope she pulled up the right tests and I don't have to have them all re-done.

So we did it, and at least she cheered up when she got into my superstar vein and it performed beautifully. And fast. Which made me wonder if I'd stopped the low dose aspirin early enough - I haven't taken it for the last two days in the hopes that it wouldn't skew the clotting tests, but maybe I should have stayed away for longer as my blood looked pretty free flowing coming out into the vials.

And then of course as I was driving to work I happened to look down to see a completely saturated gauze pad with blood oozing down my forearm, which is a tad disconcerting when you start worrying if you're going to expire from blood loss half way down the road, and crash. Luckily I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt so at least I didn't have to go home to change. And luckily too I have remnants from many previous blood tests stuffed into the ashtray of my car. Other people have cigarette butts, I have old used gauze pads. Yes, I know it was hardly sanitary, but I whipped out a few old cruddy gauzes and mopped up the best I could. Luckily three it clotted up and I didn't bleed out. Luckily four my employer provides breakfast on random Fridays, which is sometimes a few doughnuts but today was miraculously a nice spread with bagels, cream cheese and all sorts of other tasty items. So I stocked up and replenished myself.

In other blood letting news, AF has arrived too. I had acupuncture last night so told cutie acu to work some magic to get everything going, but not so much that we made a mess on the table. He said not to worry, he'd made that mistake once and has never done it again. Oh dear, that poor woman, whoever she was! And he did do his voodoo that he does do so well, and it worked within 3 hours. And thankfully not all over the table. So I think I will start patches tomorrow and have the FET transfer on Feb. 7th. I know I said FET would be Feb. 6th if AF started yesterday, but I'm going to lie and say it was spotting yesterday and day 1 today, because that makes life easier for various reasons.