A few weeks ago, Jeff developed a mysterious rash under his arms. It started from the friction (hee hee) of lifting weights but it never went away. He went to the doctor and she decided to take a needle biopsy of one of the bumps in the rash. Jeff has a major phobia of needles but the nurse was really talkative and funny, and he said that she put him at ease. They were still chit chatting as she was finishing up, and as she put the needle into the biohazard container she pricked her finger. With Jeff's bloody needle. OMFG!
The poor thing must have been freaking out!
Jeff said he heard her telling the doctor what happened and that she was pretty frantic. After she had cleaned up her hand, she came back in and held up her finger and told him she pricked her finger. Before she even asked he told her she could draw his blood and ask any questions she had. They ended up taking 4 vials of blood and asking a lot of 'lifestyle' questions like, "Have you ever had homosexual sex, taken IV drugs," etc. On his way out the door, Jeff reassured her that she was going to be fine but he could tell that she wasn't going to 'be okay' until she saw the test results herself.
The test results came in and of course everything was fine. I was at the doctors office yesterday for my allergies and I brought Kennen with me. As we were walking to the exam room one nurses was lingering outside my exam room and was very smiley and happy and talked to Kennen and said how cute he was. While I was waiting in the exam room, I called Jeff and asked him to describe the nurse that pricked her finger, and guess what? It was the super smiley nurse. A-ha! I knew that was more than regular nurse niceness...it was more of a, "Thank you for not being a nasty heroin junkie skank...since we have swapped bodily fluids and all!"
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Here's a story.
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4 comments:
She must be new. It is not unusual for a nurse or doctor to get in contact with blood. Particularly when there are needles involved. They have shots that they can take to counteract what a patient might have and these require to be taken almost immediately after they come into contact. Conceivably this may be more common for us hospital staff than those at a doctors office.
Joyce
I think I would have thrown up a little if I were the nurse too. It would be freaky not knowing what you could have
Oh god! That is my biggest fear. Getting stuck with a needle. I used to work in rehab and had to check incoming drug addicts cloths for heroin needles. I always used gloves and tongs. One day, my friend got stuck with a used heroin needle. For 6 months he had to wait out the results because the client refused to take an HIV test. Thankfully he was ok.
But did you know it is a higher percentage of catching Hepatitis than HIV when getting pricked with a needle.
The nurse is lucky. Best case scenario!
Just last week, I had to draw Thong's dad's blood and lo and behold, I stuck myself with his needle too. I'm the queen of careful, I just couldn't believe it.
He's almost 80 years old and has been married since he was practically a child, and only with the one woman...
BUT I still made Thong run an HIV test on him. Of course it was negative, and all of his liver enzyme tests (which if he had Hep. C would be way elevated), were low.
BUT, I will tell you, those 24 hours after the test are pretty damn gruelling.
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