If you get through all the nonsense at the first of this post, you'll get to hear about me drawing blood.

I used to have a test tomorrow, but then it was pushed to friday. Ultimately it doesn't make much of a difference because I'm working tomorrow, but it is a bit of a relief...enough of one that I'm writing on here instead of studying...and that I went to dinner tonight with friends instead of studying. Man I love the meatloaf at that pub. I did study before though, and that's something. I really enjoy Microbiology actually, and I don't mind studying for it because it's interesting. But it does tend to make me paranoid. When you spend a year learning about all the different diseases you can get, and what organisms cause them, and all of the everday places you can pick them up... Well, there you go. Right now I'm learning about moulds, which is kind of nice because we do allergen testing at my work for most of them, so I already know the names of the species and genus's for many. And our lab for that class this week consisted of us making slides of molds we obtained from sandwiches, cheese, and random things people brought in. My favorite by far was the Alternaria growing on a pumpkin someone brought it. It looked like little caveman clubs growing off of wood. There's probably a better way I could have described that to do it justice, but I'm not willing to take the effort of making that into sense.

Today was actually a pretty enjoyable day at school, if you take out most of the anxiety ridden moments that preceded the Hematology test I had last. It was my final, I didn't feel ready for it, and I'm really bad at knowing what it is she'll put on there. There's so much to remember, and she has a lot of non multiple choice stuff on there. A lot of diagnosing people and listing the etiology and mechanisms of diseases, and further testing to confirm the diagnosis, and symptoms and treatments and stuff. It's a face full. But that's over with and I'm fine. What I really want to write about is my Intro to Lab lab today.

We finally got to do some phlebotomy today. Very basic stuff, but still pretty cool. Earlier on they broke everyone else in the program up into two groups, so it would be more managable to handle all of us and give us the support and encouragement we needed but could not get with there being so many of us. Not that 32 is a paricularly massive number, but it's more than 2. Anyway, Worm ended up in the group that had that rotation last week and the week before, and Steven and I didn't have it until today. There are three of us in our little posse, which consists of we who work at ACME in the Immunology lab. It took quite the lengthy interview process--wherein I had to commendate my skills and capabilities--before I convinced him to let me stick a needle into his arm. Apparently he has a problem with people drawing his blood, the big baby. I had to point out my steady hands during pipette calibrations, and also my extremely visible veins, which made it easy on both of us where drawing blood was concerned. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty awesome at tying a tourniquet. I actually wasn't so much the first day we did it weeks ago, and we haven't done it since, but for some reason I could today. Maybe it's because someone up there knew Steven would freak out if I showed any signs of weakness today, as to my drawing abilities. But yeah, things went off without a hitch. We both practiced on the fake arm and our techniques were fine the first time, so we moved right onto actual arms. Two of our friends, who are in the other ACME posse, Jacob and Noel, did not fare so well. They both had to practice on the arm one more time, which to be fair was probably because they tried before us, and we got the benefit of learning from their mistakes. But it was awesome watching them draw blood after we were done drawing each others--I don't think I've laughed that hard for a while. I drew first of all of our bay, and it went pretty well. It wasn't perfect, but thanks to Steven's massive veins so close to the surface, I would have had to poke his arm with my eyes closed to miss the mark. Actually, because we were encouraged to not look at the veins, but to instead "feel" them with our "feely" finger (a.k.a. the pointer finger due to it's delicate nerve endings), I bet I could have still got it with my eyes closed. Steven was so worried about hurting me though, and thus his hands were shaking like crazy before and whilst the needle was in my arm. I kept telling him I could care less, but it didn't seem to make a difference; I mean, it was such a small needle, and with that needles don't bother me, and that I donate blood frequently enough and with a much larger needle in my arm--the fact of the matter is that he would have had to stick the needle straight into my median nerve for me to have felt it. Noel drew Jacob's blood after Steven, and it was farely awesome. She had the needle in his arm before she warned him that he was about to "feel a little stick" (we're supposed to warn the person by telling them that before we actually do anything). He was like, "okay..." She didn't so much get his vein as she did not get his vein, but she did leave the tourniquet on his arm for far too long. I have to give him props for being really calm while these events unfolded. So he mentioned that his arm was starting to hurt and the tourniquet came off after the needle came out (a big don't), and Noel quickly grabbed what she thought was a swab, but was actually an alcohol wipe. I think each of them noted in their heads that it was wet before the realization came that something was not quite right, and at that point Noel got the real swab and switched it. But not before exacting it's tole. I don't think it hurt a lot, but I would imagine it stinging at least a little. Jacob's needle went through Noel's vein, spurted a little in the tube as he pulled it out a bit, and stopped when he pulled it out too much only to reconvene it's exit through the skin of her arm. Again, full marks for professionalism. He's the guy that would draw your blood and could completely mutilate your arm with a needle while doing so, and the only thing you'd think afterwards is, "wow, what a nice guy that was that drew my blood." All in all it was a wonderful learning experience for all of us.

This is Noel trying very hard to evade Jacob's swinging fist, which I don't think he realized was so wildly out of control while trying to tie that tourniquet. And of course Steven and Jacob smiling in anticipation.
This is me and Steven with the tube of my blood after I got got. And there's Jacob and Noel again, with him wafting the alcohol wiped area dry--very important stuff. If you see a blond lady in the background, that's Donna, one of our lab teaching assistants. She likes us the best.