No, not a line from a bad vampire film, nor even some sort of B grade porno. This, dear readers, is what the woman at the blood lab at Waitakere Hospital said to me as I turned up with my forms for more bloods yesterday. I couldn’t believe it!!
I think she must have felt bad (my VERY curt response of “That’s EXACTLY what you want to hear from someone who’s about to take blood from you” may have made her think), because after that she tried to make nice and talk to me about my son and her grandson, etc, but boy oh boy was that a bad way to start! This is almost as bad as the bloodlab woman (a phlebotomist, if I’m being proper) who was charged with taking a blood sample when I was 16 to determine if I was type 1 or type 2. She said “oh, type 1 – I couldn’t handle doing all those injections”. Again, just what I felt like hearing after three days of poking and prodding and being told in my teens that I’d be doing injections multiple times a day for the rest of my life.
Anyway, after all my dreading about my HbA1c and all your lovely reassuring messages that it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought, it turns out you guys were right! I couldn’t believe it… HbA1c of 6.7%. I thought the specialist was having me on. I was seriously expecting about 8.3% and hoping I might slide in just under 8…. I have no idea how I did this. I have spent hours on 14s. I’ve had a couple of cannula failures. I’ve had about four weeks of totally unpredictable highs which took hours to correct each time. And I’ve been a tad laxer with my diet. But – I’ll take it!
And – by the way. The vampire lady was not kidding. She took another nine vials of blood from me (this is additional to the ones I had done on Monday for HbA1c etc). Was a little wobbly on my feet on the way out!
Posted in Monitoring, Slice of Life
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Aaron wrote
Some people need active empathy training – that is a bit of a shocker! Oh, and MASSIVE congrats on the awesome HbA1c!
Tania wrote
Oh thats terrible. sorry to hear that. I will never forget the time I went to a specialist. She asked me if I had a partner and I said no and she said ” oh, that’s a shame”
What a thing to say. Not professional at all!
Aaron wrote
WHAT! Tania, how did you respond? Did you say, “shame you’re so ugly” or “shame you are a terrible people person”?
I’m genuinely gob-smacked by that…
Chris wrote
Talking of inappropriate comments….. I used to travel to Australia several times a year for business. I always carry food with me when flying internationally (processed only) and I always declare it. I take this precaution to cover any unexpected eventualities, like delayed flights left sitting on the tarmac for hours with no food or drink allowed (it’s happened)
On this particular trip when I declared my food and my reason for having it, the ‘official’ said ‘well, then you must carry insulin with you.’ I agreed I did at which point he demanded to know why I had not declared it. I responded that I did not know I had to (this was some years ago and I thought the question “Are you carrying drugs of any kind referred to the other more illicit sort – as if you would ever tell them!)
But back to the story – at this point, the official yelled at the top of his voice to his supervisor “She’s a diabetic carrying insulin and hasn’t declared it!’ Welcome to Australia – you have been announced. I felt utterly mortified, embarrassed, upset, violated, you name it!
It was only as I walked through the exit with a great deal of relief and sense of escape that I thought of the response I should have given. “Hey Everyone! This guy’s got a small dick!”
Jade wrote
crikey Nic hat’s a lot of blood to be taken hope you had a choccie bikkie or something to make you feel better.
Saffy wrote
Um, dude – I’m a bit gobsmacked – that’s such an awesomely terrible medical quote. The closest I’ve got, which is nowhere near being suitable for a ’sweet’ porno flick is ‘congrats, you’re now a state sponsored drug addict’ – said the dorky specialist.
Congrats on you a1c. I hope mine is even with 2 of that!!!