A Vein Attempt

About a month ago I got really sick. Can’t exactly remember where I got the debilitating disease from but it was one of the most unpleasant viral visitations I have experienced in my adult life. I started coming down with it on the Monday, so on Tuesday I couldn’t make young adults Bible study, in many ways the highlight of my week. So I SMSed Pastor Chris that I couldn’t make it and was coming down with the Ebola virus (it felt like that at the time). He replied as tersely as ever “we’ll pray for you”. Needless to say I got worse. So I replied to him the next day something like “clearly the prayer of the righteous avails much, if this is what happens when the young adults pray for me please remind me to not ask for prayer again, you might have to preside over my funeral the next day.” Not to be outdone Pastor Chris replied with “Maybe God wants to work on your character more than make you feel better.” To be honest I struggled to find the character-building qualities of having fever, nasal drip, nausea, cramps and diarrhoea all at the same time. But hey I’m still alive today and could probably identify with 1 or 2 lines from Khanye West’s “Through the Fire” now.

I always thought I’d enjoy getting a week off work but man this was not fun. Being too sick to really do anything; and Samba stuffing around on Facebook on the computers at gym instead of getting me electrolytes turned out to be a major trial in my life. 

On Friday night at about 12am I had had enough, I asked Samba and Omi to take me to casualty at the hospital so they could give me something for the pain and fever. So being fully prepared in my pyjamas, armed with just about the gayest hot water bottle in the world, and a puke bucket (just in case the drive didn’t go too well); we headed off to the hospital.

This hot water bottle requires its own paragraph. I don’t own a hot water bottle but my sisters and most girls I know do. I am waiting for the blue water bottle with “For Men” on it before I buy mine. Samba; however has a mini hot water bottle suitable for little princesses. But it does not end there, she thought it suitable to clothe it in a little tiger stuffed animal cover with arms that double as handles or straps or something. So when it all comes together it looks like a cute and fluffy little tiger handbag complete with whiskers. 

Alas the pain I was feeling at that moment did not afford me the luxury of choice, so in we walked to casualty with me in my pyjamas clutching the cute and cuddly water bottle to my stomach.

So after being admitted, I got a bed about as comfortable as those black gym mats you use to stretch on at gym. The friendly doctor eventually came and said I’ll need a drip with Buscopan to relieve the cramping. This sounded good although I had and still have my reservations about needles. 

Finally a group of nurses came to my bed, clearly they were all trainees and only the old, cantankerous, grey-haired one was experienced in this kind of thing. Which is cool, the younger nurses need to learn, I’m all for on the job training. So the older nurse put me at ease by checking my veins and rubbing alcohol on the spot where the drip needle was about to go. Usually when I’m about to be injected I look away and try and think of pleasant thoughts to avoid squirming and screaming like a little girl. So I started looking away while Nurse Grumpylump explained to the trainees how to push down on the vein below the place of injection and then inject from the side of the vein and straighten the needle into it. Lovely. 

Then she said a few words that almost made my heart stop: “Okay, now you try it.” I was mortified. Nurse Grumpylump was about to let a complete novice insert a needle into my vein! In all honesty, a trainee nurse has to learn. But does she have to on a real person? Can’t she practice on a prosthetic arm? I started breaking out in a cold sweat and waited in anticipation. First Nurse Novicita got it wrong by putting pressure above the place she had to insert the hypodermic needle and was consequently scolded by nurse Grumpylump for not using her brain. Not a good sign. Then with about three hands all over the “insertion site” nurse Novicita managed to bludgeon the drip needle into my flesh and fortunately found the vein. I am getting queasy just typing this. 

By the time they had it all set up and working there was a blood stain on the sheet about the size of my palm and the rest of the blood on my hand was just taped over in order to keep the drip in. It honestly looked like I had been shot in the hand. But the soothing sensation of the Buscopan coursing through my veins, easing the abdominal cramps, made me quickly forget that my hand looked like I had just come off the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Eventually the burn of the hypodermic needle in my vein eased and I started feeling better. 

I really hope I do not get that sick anytime soon, and next time I’m leaving the hot water bottle at home no matter what. Oh and thanks for the prayers young adults, I wouldn’t have this story without them.