I made the mistake of showing them a part of The Wizard of OZ.
I tried to show them a witch-free version, to prevent the nightmares and it worked for a while. If there were any shots of green face that I could remember, I would skip to the next scene. I forgot about the one scene when they meet the Tin Man under the mean apple trees. For only a split second, the witch appears and hides behind a tree. For just that one second, the girls forgot all about the rest of the movie and any songs that they had heard. All they want to do is talk about is the "Green Witch." this and "the Green Witch" that.
Big "M" was so mad at me.
This week, I got to see what life is like when you only have one class to work with. It's still hard but at least I can focus on one subject. I also got to know a little bit more about my classmates. Apparently, you are suppose to really get to know the people in your class in Phlebotomy, Why, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE ON EACH OTHER!. Did you know that? I didn't. That's right. In Phlebotomy you have to practice your needle techniques on each other! We learned this during orientation and there was a collective what-the-fuck? look on all of our faces. It makes since tough. You are choosing a career where you are going to be drawing blood out of an average of 40-100 people per day. Do you really want to be treating them the same way you treat a rubber arm you were sticking during class? The same one used for the 5:30 fisting class?
The teacher Miss Hardass is also a person you are going to have to stick eventually. There are 16 people in our class. Who the hell voluntarily takes a job were every week you get 16 needle sticks? I'm guessing either she's just really dedicated to her job of teaching OR in her spare time, she dresses up in leather, has a iron maiden in her bedroom and steals the fake rubber arms for god knows what. I decided that the former is true.
She really does know her stuff. She started us off with finger sticks. Finger sticks are a lot different than I remember. I remember they would use a sharp piece of metal– probably the same one washed over and over , and they would shove that mother fucker right into your finger, as close to your nail bed as they could get, sorta like listening to Bush giving a speech. The new finger sticks are all automated and spring loaded and you literally don't feel them when they puncture you. This was the first lesson in sticking each other. I think I did good on the girl I was assigned to but it took me 3 days to heal from hers. The next class we got to do venipunctures on the rubber arms: "Hey? Why does my smell like K-Y jelly?" I asked. "Shut your cake-hole, and use it!" the teacher growled at me.
I was teamed up with this one guy who complains more than that guy I once gutted like a fish dwhen I worked for the Yakuza. I understand that he's working overtime at his job and has to do 8 hours of class and then 8 hours of homework, but we're all sucking it up. I was also teamed up with this girl who sued her own mother for $3,000 dollars. On top of that, she did it on one of those TV court shows!! That's right, not only did she have the gaul to sue her own mom (and won) but she went on national TV and did it. Strangely enough I kinda remember her on the show and get this: It was a special "Mother's day" episode. Needless to say, if someone sues their own mother, what hope do you have that they're going to be nice to you? When it was her turn to stick the arm and draw blood from it, she made it look easy. I guess she's use to draining blood. The next guy made one mistake but then he got it right. When It was my time, I was like captain fuck-up of the SS Inept. I couldn't find the vein if it was outside the body with a note that said :"Vein. Put needle in this." While the teacher was getting frustrated with my mangling her favorite rubber arm, Miss Mothersuer is harping on me with such encouraging things as: "Dang! don't you know how to tie your shoe?" or "He's taking up so much time that (the guy who has the job problem) can't get his turn in." Basically I sucked ass that day. It's very stressful because It's a terrifying thought of fucking up like that on a real person. I had no idea that there was so much to giving somebody a shot. There's hand positioning, pressure. sanitation, did you know that when they snap on those collection tubes, they have to go in a certain order or else the test would be ruined? It's called the order of draw. And each tube may have a different substance in it to make the blood do something different. Do them in the wrong order and you could cause cross contamination.
I did learn that if they are taking your blood with a red cap tube, they use that one to test for, among many other things, alcohol. Maybe they should call those test tubes "shot" glasses.
Here is a picture of the patron saint of phlebotomy, coming to kick my ass because of that horrible pun.
That's it
EM
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