Nothing But Needles

Sunday June 26th, 2011 - Libertyville, IL

   Rough night, with a rougher day right behind it. I hardly got any sleep as the pain in my knee went from about a 10 to a 56 in the space of just a few hours. I made a point to walk as much as I could yesterday, but there was still a sharp pain right in the joint of my knee. It felt like I soaked my knee in napalm, then lit it on fire. I couldn’t bend it even a little.

   I have no idea what caused it, and I don’t remember twisting it, but I can’t remember in all my years a pain so intense in that area. If I hadn’t had to come to the hospital for what I’m already in for, I’d have had to consider it for this. It has me concerned, but there’s so much other stuff going on I can’t spend too much time thinking about it. But it does hurt.

   The needles started early today and wouldn’t quit. I went for a walk about 4:30am to try and relieve the pressure in my knee. I can walk pretty well on it, but lifting it up to try and put it on a bed sends it through the roof in about two seconds. Walking feels good though. It gets the blood pumping and makes me feel like I’m still alive. Laying around is not fun.

   I got back to my room and there was a woman there who I had a bad feeling about right away. I don’t know how I knew it, but I could tell she wasn’t a people person and I felt an unfriendly vibe when she told me she needed to get some blood. I told her my veins were used up and it would be difficult, but I’d still let her try if she felt she needed to do that.

   That’s got to be a horrible job, going from room to room sticking people with needles at 5am. I told her that to try and make conversation as she was tapping my arm trying to find one more vein, and she went off on how they had to be there at 3:45 and how hard the job was from HER standpoint. She couldn’t care less about the patients and it totally showed.

   She wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and I told her to just do what she had to do so it would be over with. She took about ten minutes on my right arm and then stuck what felt like a six inch needle right in the crook of my arm at the elbow. I had to bite my lip to not scream out loud, but after a while she told me she wasn’t able to draw any blood from it.

   I was visibly pissed and she knew it, but she still had to get what she came for so I tried to explain to her that I knew that but now she could see why I was so frustrated. She said she thought she could get it from the other arm, so I clenched my teeth and let her try it.

   About halfway through the process I had the sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be able to get anything from this one either and I was correct. The second needle felt bigger than the first, and when she told me she blew it I was ready to jam it right up her ass in retaliation. That just started it, and the rest of the day has been one poke after the next. I’m sick of it.

   Then they took me to get my sore knee x-rayed, and the technician was ready to take an x-ray of the wrong one. Had I not told him, he would have taken the opposite one. This is the kind of thing I’ve always heard about, but I can see how it happens. It’s easy to screw things up, and the longer I’m here, the more I see it. I just want to go home and heal up.

Posted via email from Dobie Maxwell's "Dented Can" Diary