Upsetting lab visit today

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I have to go every three months to get Depakote and liver function blood draws done (Depakote is hard on the liver and I take a large dose of the stuff).

It's no big deal. My only hangup is I have to watch the actual draw.

The 'work areas' are seperated by sliding curtains. In the next area over was a little girl of maybe 6-7 years. She was obviously ill--wearing a face mask and coughing and wheezing. No biggie. I figure that anytime I have to go into a hospital I'm exposed to something.

Anyway, the poor child was petrified and she was struggling. There were FOUR techs in there with her trying to talk her down so she'd sit for the draw. They were doing a pretty good job of it.

Except...her idiot mom was screaming at her to quit being a baby or she'd be grounded. She kept telling the poor kid that it "wouldn't hurt". That's a crock. Blood draws DO hurt. If it's a "good stick" the pain is only momentary, but it is still there.

'My' tech was so flustered that she was getting side-tracked by the activity next door. I asked if there was any way the little girl could watch ME getting my blood drawn and see that it wasn't something to be terrified of.

Unfortunately, procedure and HIPPA do not allow that. The techs even told mom that she could ask her pediatrician for a small dose of tranquilizer, and some local anesthetic ointment to make things easier in the future.

Her response? "That stuff costs a fortune!"

I don't understand the dishonesty (which just feeds into the lack of trust--how could mom allow me to be hurt?), and I really don't understand the refusal to use resources that make the whole procedure easier.

I had to have a LOT of blood draws as a small child. Bribes sure didn't hurt. We didn't go to McDonalds due to being a Kosher house. Our bribe was going to a local ice-cream parlor that we found fascinating as the scoops were served as cubes.

I don't quite know what to think, but the whole thing just seemed very wrong to me.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Sigh.

husband and I took Jett in for beginning of neuropsychologist in June. Of course he had to have blood drawn - and BM has taken him so many times that he is absolutely petrified of needles (don't tell anyone I said this, but the kid is a wimp sometimes).

I went back with him. The tech and I could NOT hold him. He actually hit the poor tech in the face. I managed to get his attention on me at first, and he wasn't looking - till the tech taped the tube on. Flailing child - and he is STRONG.

So we called husband in. Got blood drawn.

Gets better. He finds out, months later, that friend E is an EMT. Informs all of us that "if that man who took my blood was E I would have let him 'cause he won't hurt me."

Nice to have the confidence there, but being stuck with a needle DOES hurt. My Mom used to work in a lab, and I hated being stuck, but she trained her people to be some of the best on the planet. So it wasn't so traumatic for me. I still don't like it.
 

rejectedmom

New Member
That mother should have been asked to leave. I don't know if the laws permit that anymore but it used to be that the staff could request that the parents stay in the waiting area. -RM
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Like I said, having blood drawn doesn't bother me anymore. However, when I had the surgery for the obstruction, they put down a stomach tube. I have some choking phobias due to having no small amount of oral-nasal defensiveness.

I quite literally went ballistic. I too hit a nurse in the face. I totally panicked. I am not a child and I KNEW why it had to be done (so my stomach didn't rupture). They had to bring down a huge male nurse from the psychiatric unit to basically sit on me. It got the job done, but only because he was stronger than I am.

I was mortified once I heard several days later what had happened. Once I was out of the hospital and up and around, I got a huge tray of cookies from a local grocery store, and brought it down to the nursing station on the floor where it had happened.

My condition (multiple intestinal adhesions and strictures due to endometreosis) means that obstructions are very likely to re-occure)means that I will likely have this happen in the future. There is a "flag" in my records stating that I need to be sedated to be 'tubed'.

I hope it works. I pack a mean punch and I surely don't want to hurt anyone else.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
That is just plain mean and ridiculous! The Mother should have had to have an 8 gauge needle shoved in the back of her hand! LOL
That poor kid.
N is severely anxious, we had to work with her and our therapist doing CBT for 2 weeks prior to this last shot.
We were matter of fact about it hurting. We let her stick us with pins, then we did it to her. She did it to her dolls.

The Nurse said the fact that we are so calm and nonchalant about it really helps.
N doesn't like it, but she takes it now.
K takes her blood draws also, no big deal any more.

I am a weirdo, I don't think they really hurt. When I was in labor and they were jamming the back of my hand and then the side of my hand because my veins had closed up, that started bugging me after 6 tries.
But giving blood or blood draws no.

But I also come from a family of IV drug addicts!!! LOL
 

crazymama30

Active Member
That is awful. I would have been upset too. No matter how inconsequential someone's fear seems to others, it is very real to them and should never be discounted and the person who is fearful should not be ridiculed, especially if it is a child.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Some people just have no empathy for others, even their own kids. And for some people, it's just a control issue and they think they should be able to demand fear out of their kid. Sorry, but it just doesn't work that way!
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
Kat, I know exactly what you mean about the bribes! When my daughter was little she was at the ear doctor practically every week and she hated every minute of it but she did very well and cooperated. She did that because if she did well at the doctors, we went straight to a favorite restaurant and had blueberry pancakes! Sneeky and underhanded but it worked! And I NEVER lied to my kids about whether something would hurt or not. If it's something like a blood draw, you tell them that it will hurt a little bit but nothing they can't handle.

I will never forget when my son was just an infant and had to have ear surgery (yeah, he had it too!). He had to go in a few days before his surgery to have lab work done, including a blood draw! He pitched such a fit they ended up having to wrap him up in a blanket to subdue him enough to keep him still - then they asked me if I would hold him while they did it! NO WAY!!! I had to live with that kid and didn't want him thinking I was a part of it ... which he probably did anyway!
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
When Cory was 18 months old he swallowed some cleanser and needed to have a blood gas drawn. Well that is one heck of a nasty blood draw and the doctors refused to have us in the room when it happened because they didnt want him to associate us with that pain. I sure understand their thinking after having that test done myself.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
That woman should be charged with child abuse. Her job was to comfort her child through this, NOT make her more upset. SHE is the one who should end up with a fist to the face based on how she treated her child.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
This is so sad. I remember there was one time when the techs were having such a hard time getting difficult child's blood. He was really scared but everyone was so nice to him. He ended up having to go to another place to have it done where they specialized in getting draws from kids. difficult child had a few tears that day but thankfully the way everyone treated him made it so he wasn't afraid of blood draws. In fact he eventually started to look forward to them; he sure did puzzle the techs when he would ask if they would use the biggest needle possible and if he could watch while they did it!
 
I

iloveturtles

Guest
That poor child.

difficult child used to be good at getting his immunizations. That is up until last year when we went through a large number of blood draws, and they had to use a larger needle (not sure of all the "right") terms so the draws could happen. Then we had to go back in because some of the draws weren't drawn "right". It took a few guys to hold him down. That was in June. You should have seen him getting his flu shot last fall. It took 6 of us. After it was done, he was a little embarassed, for a skinny eleven year old he is strong.

This year we made it through ok. We have a deal he knows ahead of time whether he is getting stuck or not.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Wiped, your difficult child was onto something with the needles. Larger gauge needles are longer which means less digging around, AND the draw itself goes much quicker. They use the little 'butterfly' needles on children because they are fine gauge and fit tiny veins better, plus with the tubing, they are much less likely to pull out if the child fights.
 
They can do a lidocaine shot to numb the area before the "stick," or, if they are in a mood to be patient, they can use EMLA cream which does the same thing without a stick but takes 20 minutes or so after application to numb the area. I don't know why this isn't done more often. Obviously, for a clear, "easy" blood draw, the extra stick is not worth it, but for somebody who has a history of being a "difficult" stick or is so petrified that their veins are literally running away, it sure makes a lot of sense. I've seen it done both ways with my daughter, who is a very "difficult" stick. It makes all the difference in the world. Especially for starting an IV, it is priceless. It's amazing all the excuses they use for not doing this. "We don't have that on this floor," or "I didn't think about that. We can do that if you want to." I don't get it. If they can do a few that aren't so traumatizing, the child might get to the point the process is not so scary, so that they no longer NEED the lidocaine. It really does go in a circle. The more difficult the stick, the more trauma, and the more hysterical the child, the more the body reacts to make for a more difficult stick.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Yeah. The more adrenaline you have coursing through the system, the more the peripheral vascular system shuts down.

That is why one's hands become cold and clammy when anxious or frightened.

I haven't had the numbing injections for starting IVs, but my mother who has lousy circulation has because they really have to dig around for veins and due to her age and health issues, they have to go for the back of the hand.

She said the lidocaine shot really helped a lot. Plus, the needle is thinner than a human hair and very short. She said she barely felt the local anesthetic at all beyond a sensation of cold and pressure.

Neither she nor I have used the EMLA cream. I would like to see a seperate lab/procedure areas for children.

I think having their own more 'homey' envronment combined with techs and nurses specially trained to deal with children, would make it a lot easier on everyone concerned.
 
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