When you do ivf, you generally have to have lots of blood tests (as you may know from first hand experience). I normally don't mind this. I'm not particularly worried about needles or the sight of blood. The collection centre that I normally go to has a number of blood collectors that cycle through. Most of them are great and I'm in and out in a few minutes. But there is one lady who awful at taking blood and I get nervous as soon as I see it's her on the job when I visit. My last visit on Friday was the worst so far.
The wait for my turn takes ages. I don't mind waiting, but there are only two people ahead of me and the first takes 20 minutes and the second 15 minutes. Maybe they were having lots of samples taken, but I somehow doubt it, she is just very slow. Finally my turn. The lady fusses around slowly getting everything ready. She is very chatty and friendly, but this seems to slow her down even more. She puts the tourniquet on one arm and makes me pump my hand while she pokes and prods. She tells me I have "terrible veins" (she tells me this every time, no one else ever seems to have a problem with them). Then she decides my other arm might be better and repeats the same on the other side. Nope, no better, so back to the first arm she goes. By now my arm was beginning to throb and go purple as she has the band on so tight. Then she tells me she's not "allowed" to get blood from deep veins, only from the ones near the surface as she hasn't had much training and experience. Eeek! She also tells me she feels she shouldn't have to work at this particular centre as she gets all the ivf patients who have terrible veins from having to have so many blood tests all the time.
Finally she goes for the jab and misses. Wiggles it around a bit and still nothing (just pain!). After all this (about 15 minutes worth), she rings her supervisor who comes in and has blood out of me within 60 seconds. I finally leave only to find a parking ticket as it has taken so long! I'm feeling really quite upset and stressed by now.
Normally I am not a complainer about bad service or products. I just don't go back and find somewhere else. But in this case, there are not many options, I can't really shop around. So in the end I rang up her supervisor and discussed my experiences with her (keep in mind that I've had blood collected from the collector a number of times and it has been awful each time). I feel bad for complaining about her as she seems to be a very nice person. But I just can't go through that each time I have to have blood taken. IVF is stressful enough without adding anything more to the mix! We've come to a bit of an arrangement where I can ring and see who's on before I go in. If it's her, then someone else will come in to take my blood.
Now I feel mean for dobbing on her. And I hope I don't run into her anyway, as she probably thinks I'm a whinging cow.
I have had the same problem! OMG! With my last IVF cycle because I had to be coasted I had blood tests every day for 6 days in a row. They can't use one of my arms because the vein always collapses, but one particular lady TWICE insisted it should be fine and attempted anyway and both times it collapsed and she had to go to the other arm which is what I had told her in the first place! Aaaaggghhhh. I feel for you, I really do!
ReplyDeleteWhich collection centre - the one at the hospital? Somehow I manage to not have blood taken very often. And it's not like I ever get to that stage after transfer.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you said something though. Did her supervisor sound like any changes would be made?
HAPPY PUPO!!!
Yes, the one at the hospital. Her superviosr said they were aware she was having problems and were working on "skilling her up". I'm not sure why they are letting her loose on her own if they know she's got issues though. I'm just glad she wasn't on when I had to have 13 vials taken the other week!
ReplyDelete'Luckily' my 13 vials of blood were ordered by my obstetrician rather than Bill (Bill has no curiousity about why I don't get pregnant or why my son died), who has the pathology done by Hobart Pathology. The vampire was reasonably competent (but obviously doesn't like people).
ReplyDeleteBill does seem to sometimes lack in these kind of things, even though I do actually quite like him. I do feel I have to be very proactive with him. I actually asked to have the testing done after my last miscarriage and I also had to ask to use pregnyl this cycle. But not much choice in Tas is there?
ReplyDeleteThat's shocking! I've had many, many blood tests over the last few months but haven't encountered anyone as bad as that. Only once was I given the "bad vein" diagnosis. Apparantly it was my fault because I hadn't had enough to drink during the day...(so my blood was drying up???!!!)
ReplyDelete