Skip to main content

The Needle And The Damage Done



That's my right forearm. It's purple. I have a left one the very same. That's some serious bruising. Why? No, Mrs. D. and I didn't trade blows although it kinda looks like it. No, I have the nurses at the Ottawa General Hospital to thank for it.

Every week I have an appointment at the hospital's Medical Day Care Unit for chemotherapy. But while I show up my veins often don't. Maybe they're scared. I would be too after all the poking and prodding. The chemo is intravenous and that means a needle into a vein. More often than not however it takes several attempts to find one.

You know how they say "third time's a charm"? In my case they say fourth or fifth time. And each miss results in a piece of gauze and several strips of tape over the failed attempt. By the time I'm done I've used up a significant portion of the hospital's tape allowance.

Just as an aside, I think nurses as a rule take a special course in tape usage. They're such experts with that role of sticky fibre and they love to plaster their patients with it. And when you remove it? I get a free depilatory session.

Anyway, by the time I get home with four or five taped patches on my forearm I wanna tell Mrs D "Hey, you should see the other guy." Instead, to quote Neil Young,  I mutter "I've seen the needle and the damage done."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

My Back Pages - November

I know, I know, I know I should have reported in before now. But sometimes real life just gets in the way. I attempted 5 books in November. I say attempted because I slapped a big DNF (did not finish) on Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I just can't seem to get into this guy. It's the second or third of his I've given up on, Not so the other four, starting with a biography of Stephen Stills called Change Partners. This followed by a hilarious biography of the guy responsible for National Lampoon called A Stupid and Futile Gesture - How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever. I ended the month reading yet another biography, this one of the man behind Rolling Stone magazine,. It was called Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine. A fascinating read. So last month I hit the magic number 50 I'd imagined for myself back in January. If I roll this month into my yearly total I'm at 54 books. And I still hav...

30 Days of Writing - Day #1 - Cheese

Well, here we go again folks. As if it weren't enough that I knocked myself out in April participating in 30 Days of Photos, now dear Nicky and Mike over at We Work For Cheese have corralled a bunch of us suckers into a 30 Days of Writing exercise. Yeah, I know. I must have stupid written backwards on my forehead. I don't know how they figured it out. They would have had to look in my mirror to realize it. Anyhoo, the first day's theme is - surprise, surprise - cheese.  And here are the internet imbeciles Nicky and Mike managed to sucker into to this little exercise:  Well, first off there's me! Once you've read my post you can visit:  Mike and Nicky ,   Cheryl ,   If I Were God ,   Katherine ,   Laughing Mom ,   Linda M ,   Malisa ,   MikeWJ ,   Sandra , Leeuna  and Still Unfinished . Okay, who cut the cheese? Well growing up in my house it was usually my mother. She prepared and served the food and the knife ...