Gleostine: Round 1, Part 2
Yesterday was my first post-gleostine lab day.
Gleostine chemotherapy, like all chemotherapy, requires a weekly complete blood count (CBC) with differential. On a pretty basic level, it lets me know how dangerous it is to go out in public without a mask. On a more complicated level, it lets my doctors know if I might need a course of antibiotics or perhaps a break from gleostine. This stuff is hard on the cancer and the body, after all.
Anyway, I don’t typically look forward to things that require my being stuck with a needle. Not because I have a phobia, but just because who does? As a patient who’s been stuck for blood samples and IVs hundreds of times since February, I think my veins sense when the needle is coming and get very unhelpful.
A couple of weeks ago, a one-stick event turned into a four-stick event simply because my veins were tired of cooperating.
So I always say something before the tourniquet goes on to put everyone at ease and manage expectations.
“I’m a hard stick,” I told the phlebotomist. “Start wherever you like, with whichever arm you like, but know that you might have to go to the back of the hand and try several times. And I’m okay with that.”
“Do you get stuck a lot?” she asked.
“Heh. Yeah, a LOT.”
She tried the left arm and couldn’t find a suitable vein. She didn’t even try with the needle. Just unwrapped the tourniquet and moved on.
“I drank twenty ounces of water before I came here.” (I always get asked if I’m drinking enough water. Always. The answer is: I am up peeing three to four times a night. I’m getting all the water I can without drowning.)
But thank the patron saint of blood draws, she found a pretty vein in my right arm before I even finished explaining that I wasn’t a bad patient.
One stick, and the blood filled up the vial in record time.
By 10 p.m., the test results were already in my patient portal, and everything is in range so far.
We’ll see what next week brings.
