Please don't tell me how good you are

...I'll let you know!

03/07/07 - update - One hospital in the area I went to stuck me 13 times in 4 days and 12 of them on the first try! - Boy, I was a thankful cuss!

02/27/07 - In the last several months I've spent quite some time at hospitals. And one thing you get to do is to have an IV put in your hand. Whether it be when you're in emergency, or if you get to stay over in the hospital and they need to get their daily supply of blood.

I've been on the receiving end of dozens of IV's and have watched my wife receive even more.

When the nurse starts telling me how good they are, I know I'm in for trouble. I've been told I have great veins, bad veins, rolly-polly veins, hidden veins, etc. But I know this, there are people that know their job and people that don't. The good ones don't say much. They'll take a quick look, constrict your arm with a band and then insert the needle 1-2-3.

I've seen and had night nurses come into the hospital room with barely light coming through a crack in the door. Say something like "I need to get some blood", and the next thing I know they've done it and are gone.

On the other hand, I was a the doctors the other day (one who I have much respect for) and their nurses/technicians started with telling me how good they are. Constricting my arm, tapping, rubbing, tapping some more, palpating for the mysterious vein, and on and on. After 2 pokes and probing around without success they have the next bragger come in and do the same thing. After about 20 minutes of probing around and 4 pokes, getting ready to try again, I couldn't take it any more. "Stop, that's enough!" I said.

The last time I had to go to the same doctor for another issue, they wanted to try to complete the tests and would need to insert some dye in my arm. That would require having an IV put in the same arm. I couldn't remember if the nurses were the same, until they started working on me again, then it all came back to me. "I'm really good at this, they said" ... but they weren't. I was so close to say, "You should go and work in the ER for a month, but as I get older, occasionally I keep my mouth shut. I figure you just don't want to get the people that are going to work in surgery on you in a few minutes to be ticked off!

Anyway after they went to the first guy and his 2 unssuccesful pokes, the other staff told me, "you really got him bummed. He's going to be hard to get along all day because he couldn't get it" .... "He's bummed! you should feel what I feel!" The next person tries once probed around and then tried again and failed. By this time, I knew I couldn't do this again, so I thought, maybe I could encourage them by saying something like "you can do it!". Well, they said if they went on the back of my hand I had a "good one" there but it would probably hurt more! I just spent the last 4 days in the hospital getting poked almost every day, then 4 times in this office. By that time I pretty much knew pain. For those of you who are Brian Regan comedian fans and know his hospital skit.... I'd say "eight".

So she tried it again, I let her stick the needle in and probe around for a while and voila! she finally got it. The task was done and I was ready for surgery in which there was more pain to be had "or pressure" as the doctor liked to call it.

Being a chiropractor I learned in school to palpate (or feel) by placing a hair under a paper and trying to trace it with my fingers. You were doing good after a week or 2 if you could palpate through 30 or more sheets. I tried to pass this on to the IV "probers", but they just looked at me like a deer in the head lights, and maybe feeling doesn't have anything to do with it. I kind of suspect it does.

So, the bottom line is, that when people start telling me how good they are, my veins start going real deep and I hope they are quick so the next person can come in that knows what they're doing.

Fortunately when I was in emergency 2 nurse said they had to draw blood one right after the other. I wasn't looking forward to that but both of them just did the job, drew the blood and finished. "Wow! You're good!" They looked at me with surprise with an attitude like "that's my job". Trust me, I was very happy they knew how to do their job.

What's the point in all this? Probably to get it off my chest. As I was going through it, I thought that knowing what you're doing in your job is kind of like some of the contestants on American Idol. Some of these people have been taking singing lessons for years, or singing in public for years and it seems that no one tells them they stink. It's not such a bad thing to stink at what you do.... as long as you don't make a career out of it. We can't be good at everything, and this country gives us a chance to have different careers. Ones that are more conducive to the talents and abilities we have. So, maybe I should have told those people that their IV skills stink... it might have saved a lot of people a lot of pain!

It's a Girl!

Charlotte Alaina Elwart

6 lbs. 1 oz.

She has dark curly hair and is 19 inches long.

Her parents cpl. Jackie and Kari Elwart are doing fine, and should be coming home today. We're excited for them and can't wait to see them! --- Welcome Charlotte