I had forgotten how much fun it is to visit thee laboratory and have blood drawn. The lady was nice, her office impossibly small with only the two of us there. There was not long wait- apparently the guy ahead of me was having problems producing enough fluid for the urine sample, another of those little joys I have been missing since the last annual physical years ago.

I walked down the hall to the single rest room to collect sample, and in the process noticed my hands were shaking when I tried to write my name on the sample cup. In fact, it became a challenge, just as it had at the DMV office last week when I was standing at the counter trying to fill in a change of address form- I have lived in five units in Big Pink and rarely think to change the apartment number with the Sates.

Call me a revel, but I had to give up on the attempt. And no, I didn’t try to write it on the side after I had produced my specimen. I just used the Sharpie pen on an empty one, and poured the contents from the original, which I had not noticed had a space for my name on the side.

My lab tech was good on the needle. She tied off the elastic on my right upper arm, under the mermaid on my aloha shirt. She was dead on the mark as she instructed me to ball my fist, and in it went, where the blood began to surge down the catheter into the sample vials.

I have no idea what they are gong to be looking for. Naturally, I hope it is nothing interesting. There has been quite enough of that sort of thing going around of late.

The whole thing went smoothly, and made an appointment for an exam the day after tomorrow. I was back out in the street in the blinding sunlight in a half hour. This medical thing is sort of cool, now that I know that I can actually access health care with my two little insurance cards.

Very cool. Now, I just have to hope that it was all a waste of time. We will see.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com