Tomorrow is my 3 hour test (have I mentioned that lately? LOL!). I'm dreading it, quite frankly. When I was pregnant with Caleb (#3), I passed my 1 hour test just fine, but then several weeks later I spilled some sugar into my urine at a routine appointment. Since this was at Wright-Pat, big teaching hospital that it is, their immediate response was to send me in for a 3 hour one. (In a historical footnote, I was scheduled for it right after 9/11, but the base was closed so I had to come in a few days later. The base was still on super-tight security, and it took almost 3 hours to get to the lab--I left the house at 6:00 and started the test at 9:00. Nightmare right there.)
Anyhow, back to my current fears . . . you may know that I had some blood clots in my right arm right after we got married, and because of the catheters, etc. to deal with them, I have substantial scarring in the veins of my right arm, and so it is practically impossible to draw blood from there. When I had the last 3 hour test (where they draw your blood once before you start, then 3 more times after you drink the stuff), the techs had a progressively harder time finding a place to draw blood on my left arm. By the time they were trying to draw the last vial, 3 hours later, they could not get anything. Believe me, there is nothing so aggravating as having people poke around your veins when you have had NOTHING TO EAT for 12 hours except a huge load of nasty glucose drink! I was very jitterly and nauseaus, which I never am during blood draws. Finally they had to resort to calling an "expert" from the big inpatient lab upstairs, and he got the sample with no problems, probably due only to my fervent prayers. My poor arm was bruised for weeks.
Tomorrow however, there will be no expert on hand to be called if there are problems! So I am praying that the person will be able to get the blood samples needed with a minimum of poking and fussing. I'll let you know how it goes!
4 comments:
Could you request that they take the samples from your left arm or from your ankles?
The Lab guys down here are so experienced now with all the deployments ( they literally take hundreds of blood samples a day ) that they are actually pretty good now. I was shocked when I had to do the 3 hour test with Caden. I have never liked military labs. Oh yeah -- I had to have the 3 hour test, not because I had sugar in my urine or was gaining too much weight or had diabetes before , but because my first two children where over 8 pounds at birth. How insane is that.
Laura, they will take the samples from my left arm, but that's their only (arm) option, so that's why it gets so beat up! I hadn't even thought about ankles . . . I will try that if the going gets really tough!
Johanna, I can't BELIEVE they made you take a 3 hour one just because you had babies over 8 pounds!! That is crazy!! I've had 2 9-pound babies, and no one ever told me I had to do a 3 hour one until I failed this 1-hour one! I'm amazed.
{{hugs}} and prayers this morning. I hope you'll request they try some other spot. After all, we've got veins all over the place.
Dy
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