Today was a bloodwork day. Basically, I just go in to the office and they take two tubes of blood and I'm good to go. Today, I sat in the waiting room for almost 45 minutes before they called me back. There was a different guy who got put in charge of taking my blood. He was working on filling out some paperwork and then mixing up some kind of meds in an IV bag. I was getting a little irked that I was being ignored and having it take so long for a 2 minute blood draw. Eventually he came over with the needle, prep pads, gauze, bandaid and everything....plus the bag of meds he'd been mixing up. I gave him a funny look and asked if it was for me and he said yes. "No it isn't!" I told him...I was only there for blood, not some coffee colored drug. He didn't believe me and went off to find Dr Sharma. The other nurses congratulated me for paying close attention. Eventually the main nurse came back and told me he'd been wrong, he was only supposed to get blood. I got my blood taken (with no bandaid/tape arguments...he thought I was super prepared since I had my own tape) and I headed out.
Stuff like that really freaks me out. As I've said before, I'm usually the youngest person at the oncology office by 20 years or so (though today, I think I was the youngest by about 40 years). A lot of the patients are brought to the office by aides or driving services for the elderly/disabled. A lot of the patients are really confused or don't understand what the nurses are telling them. I hear other patients talk about getting appointments mixed up or simply forgetting to come. It's scary to think how easy it would be for one of these patients to get the wrong medicine or treatment without them even realizing it. I can't stress enough how important it is to make sure you know what's going on at every doctor visit you have. Ask lots of questions, especially before procedures are done. Make sure you're all on the same page. Like I told the nurses, I'm not going to let anybody inject anything in me unless I know exactly what it is.
Also, as one of the few patients of reproductive age at this particular clinic, I have to say that it's a little disturbing that the other office on the floor is a OB/prenatal doctor. Even though I plan on homebirth with a midwife whenever I finally get to have kids, I'd so much rather be going to that office. At 26, I belong there way more than I belong in the oncology office.
Besides all that, everything is going just fine. I was at work Mon and Tues. but am home today. I'm on strict orders to be writing, not doing labwork, so that's what I'll be doing for the next few weeks (well, hopefully less than that...I'll be writing until I finish my paper). The smoking issue has been resolved and I think games of fetch with the dog upstairs will be limited to daytime, not 10PM. I'm not looking forward to chemo on Friday, but Josh took the day off to come with me, so maybe that'll make it a little better.
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3 comments:
Great job catching that mistake, Jessica. It's hard to stay sharp all the time when you're stressed out and tired. We're thinking of you and sending you more strength to keep it up all the way through.
Love, Elizabeth and family
Sheesh. I agree that those mistakes are super frightening, and yet more for others, not for us, the ones who caught the mistakes before they were made...a hug to you, sweet girl. Good on ya for protecting yourself.
It is always good to keep an eye on what's going on and what they try to stick into your body. If you have the possibility it is always good to have a second person there too. For support and assistance.
Sending lots of warm thought to you guys. So warm that we do not even have snow here yet!
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