Ann Arbor Yesterday

Ug. I hate going to Ann Arbor to get phresis on an "off'" day. For example, 98% of the time we go on Friday. This time, for various reasons, we went yesterday (a Monday). I don't know if it was because of the holiday weekend and people took an extra day off or what.

The FOUR main players (people who know me the best) including our beloved Dawn, who is my nurse most of the time, were gone. GONE. That left four people who were physically capable of doing the treatment: one woman who has done my pheresis once or twice, one who did it once, couldn't get the needle in my EASY arm (had to take the thing out 3 times!), one who has never done it, and one part-timer who has run me once before. I got the part timer.

This woman is completely capable, and is a very nice, compassionate person. She just doesn't know ME, how my veins run, etc. Both of my anicube (sp?) veins (the vein where your elbow bends) run crookedly. I know, I know. NOTHING about me can be simple and straightforward.

So the needle wasn't right in my draw arm (where they take the blood out) from the beginning. I could tell...it just wasn't right. I can't tell you how I know that, or how to fix it, I can just tell if it's not right. So for the first 45 minutes, we played with the needle (the width of a fork tine) pushing it in and out every few minutes to see if we could get a better position. NOT happening.

Since my return arm (where the blood with the new plasma goes back into me) was primo, she switched it and made THAT my draw arm. (The draw arm needs the best position.) After another 30 minutes or so, the needle that was not right from the beginning completely faded out, and she had to stick me again, with an angio needle (slightly smaller in width, but longer and sharp as a scalpel). That lasted about 30 minutes, and I wasn't completely done with the treatment yet (one bottle to go) but I was like that's it. I'm DONE! So we stopped. I normally run in about 1 hour and 10 or 15 minutes. This had been over 2 hours. It was NOT fun.

Now I have a hard little ball in my left anicube vein (the draw arm) and I don't know if it's a scar tissue blob or a clot. Nice. And just think, I get to do his every three weeks! Whoo-Hoo!!

I love my life I love my life I love my life.