STORY FIVE
Dear Reader,
I have been dealing with medical issues for a while now. First, let me tell you about my medical issues. I'm an Asthmatic Breast Cancer Survivor and suffer from HBP Seizures.
The most memorable and painful experience I had with healthcare and its workers is that some of them will actually listen to you about your own body, but then there are those that THINK THEY KNOW YOUR BODY BETTER THAN YOU. You can be blue in the face telling them what is wrong, and they seem to hear you but don't listen to you. They just do what they're there to do, and the hell if it's hurting. They say sorry, but then you have done that should go back to training.
Ex. I'm set to have bloodwork done for surgery. I tell the technician before he starts that I have really tiny veins, and the best arm is my left side. Does he listen? No! He starts to grab my right arm. Again, I tell him my left, which I had to snatch back, telling him I'm a cancer patient. Then and only then did he go for my left arm.
First, he uses a regular needle to draw blood. I'm telling him that he can't use that in my arm. He said he knows what he's doing all the while he can't find a vein, which means more digging. I give a technician two tries. After that, they have to get someone else. Now he wants to listen and use a butterfly; like I told him. Now he's pushing and moving the needle around cause he can hit a vein. Now, I just stop him and refuse to have him do my blood work. I requested another tech, and he claimed no one else to draw my blood that day but him. So he tries a different spot, but this time he hit a vein too, which causes blood to ooze from the site. He can't stop it and calls for assistance to stop the bleeding, but by now, I am lightheaded and do not feel good. Yes, I eventually pass out. I wake up on the floor with my arm so wrapped up you can see how red it's getting from the blood. I was hospitalized overnight because my blood pressure was really high. Yes, this put back my surgery, but say something if you know your body and what not to do. Healthcare workers should listen to their patients.
To me, if you don't stand up to those technicians, I called no people skills but with only book skills., You will always, or at least most of the time, be hurting, or bruised, or worse.
I now speak up to any technician taking my blood, and if it begins to hurt, I stop them and ask to find a different spot. I bruise easily, so I was all purple and blue the next few days.
Now that I've had a port put in, IVs and bloodwork are usually done through it.
Healthcare is there to help, but sometimes there are those few apples that get through. We need our healthcare and its workers for our everyday physical and mental well-being.
- Debra P.
