Sharing a blood bond

Sue Clark

“Finding the right person is an art,” I told my financial advisor, as

we sat sipping tea at Diedrich’s coffee on 17th Street in Costa Mesa.

No, we weren’t talking about potential boyfriends for me, or about

her own great husband. Although she handles my vast financial

holdings (as I like to joke), this also wasn’t about the next Alan

Greenspan or the search for an upright chief executive officer.

This was more critical; this was about blood. Ours, to be

specific. In addition to our common desire for my comfortable

retirement, this woman and I share another bond. We both have to have

blood drawn on a regular basis. Although we look like fine strapping

girls to the untutored eye, beneath our good looks lie a couple of

annoying autoimmune disorders requiring, among other

responsibilities, regular blood work.

And though we look tough, when it comes to blood work, we are

wimps. My own school is having a blood drive tomorrow. When the kids

asked me if I would give blood, I gave them a resounding ‘no.’

However, I plan to be there for any of them that, like my friend and

I, need post-traumatic stress counseling afterward.

She had regaled me with tales of inept phlebotomists who had made

jocular comments such as, “Oops, not getting any blood from this

one,” or “Wow, your veins are bad.” When the blood tech says those

words, we both agree we are doomed. Psychologically, it doesn’t

exactly pump up my veins to hear, “This is really rolling around, and

I can’t get in,” or “Your blood pressure must be very low, because

your veins are flat.”

Between anecdotes, we would feel a little woozy and sip more tea.

I told her about my famous fainting incident near Hoag Hospital, at a

little lab to that I’ll never return. I woke up on the floor with the

techs all shouting at me from above. Turns out I had not done the

trick my friend told me about, and was not hydrated. When the tech

stabbed me the third time, I slipped out of my chair to the ground.

The trick, my advisor confided, was to drink tons and tons of

water prior to the draw, as well as warming up my arms with warm

water. I told her a few moves of my own, including chatting up the

technician in an unceasing stream of commentary, while turning my

head away from what he was doing. It makes me sound inane and

garrulous -- as my friends would say, “What else is new?”

My own true love is Ahmad, a technician close to my

rheumatologist. My doctor is brilliant and her request that I go to

Westcliff Labs, and Ahmad, was brilliant. Ahmad knows my drill: I

have to go into a room with a bed and lie down, so if I faint I’m not

plunging to the floor and scaring everybody. I have to engage him in

fascinating conversation throughout the entire draw while craning my

neck the opposite way like an Egyptian hieroglyph. He has to act

perfectly calm and talk to me in a stream of soothing tones answering

all my chatty questions. Then, when I’m brave enough, I get to ask,

“Are you getting any blood?” And he must reply, “Of course; I’m all

done, and you have good veins.”

I’m down to once every six weeks, now, but with a previous doctor

I had to have blood drawn for the same disease each time I went,

which was once a week. When my new -- and did I say brilliant --

doctor told me only once every four to six weeks, I tried to hug her,

but she is a little shy.

Suffice it to say a good blood-drawer is hard to find. My friend

has a great husband, and I had lots of good guy friends, but the two

men in our life that we also depend on are our own private Draculas.

I think I’ll stop writing about this now. I’m getting a little woozy.