The Blood Draw (for our New Team)

We left Dr. G’s office and the grandparents took Mr. Charm to get some lunch while I took Mr. Happy for his blood draw.

Poor little guy had 16mL of blood drawn!  Ouch!

He really does have tough veins to draw from.  It’s a new experience for me: I’m basically a vampire’s dream, and Mr. Charm takes after me.  Wave a needle in our direction and you get blood!

Mr. Happy, on the other hand, is built to keep his blood right where it belongs, thankyouverymuch.

I honestly thought, after the last two blood draw debacles, that the first was incompetence and the second was just bad luck.  Now I see it’s just his physiology.

Our phlebotomist was so sweet and gentle, and after one failed attempt in the arm he stopped and pulled out the ‘big guns’: heating packs for Mr. Happy’s hands.

You wanna piece a me?

He looked like he was about to go boxing!

They were a handy chew toy for a while, and when our tech thought Mr. Happy had dilated enough, he gave it another shot.

This time, it worked!

It took 4 tubes to get all the blood necessary to run the tests Dr. G had ordered.  Mr. Happy was quite hysterical by the time it was all over with.  Honestly, I think he mainly didn’t like being restrained more than anything.  He didn’t fight to pull his arm away during either blood draw attempt; we were holding him still more as a ‘just in case’.  He just didn’t like being held still.  (Can’t say I blame him!)

After Mr. Happy had been consoled from his traumatic blood draw, I gathered the insane amount of stool collection tubes and headed off to meet the grandparents and Mr. Charm.  (Seriously, our nice phlebotomist actually dug out a paper shopping bag with handles to put all the collection stuff in for me to carry…it was that much!)

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In case you hadn’t figured it out, I’m breaking this story up into sections because I know none of you has an hour to read about our experience in one day!

So tomorrow, read all about our visit with our new Super Hero/Movie Star: The Allergist!