Recruiting

Besides bleeding profusely, another part of this rotation is observing research coordinators recruit participants for a study at Northwestern. Crazies abound.

Recruiter: Okay, and then you sign here.
Man: Do you mind if I use my pen? It's a fountain pen. It's one of the last vestiges of my bourgeois lifestyle.

Recruiter: (explains the DNA bank)
Woman: I saw a movie on that once! They abducted women and kept them in pods underwater and took their DNA and cloned them! Are you doing cloning?!

Recruiter: Have you ever lived within five miles of a power plant?
Woman: One time I had rats in my house.

Recruiter: Have you ever been exposed to any of these chemicals more than the average person?
Woman: No...
Recruiter: Okay, then-
Woman: One time I was exposed to cat urine.
Recruiter: Oh, uh, that's not really on our list, so-
Woman: I think there should be information on long-term exposures and short-term, substantial exposures.
Me, thinking: How the hell much cat urine are we talking here?
Recruiter: Well, if cat urine was an exposure we'd have a lot more sick people in the hospital!
Woman: Oh, yeah! I work with toxic chemicals.
Recruiter: Okay, what kind?
Woman: Paints. And cadmium.

Blood Type: F-

I'm in a rotation at school that's all about research and laboratory genetics. Fascinating. Mostly it consists of sitting in a tiny, freezing yellow break room trying to maintain my body temperature and waiting for lab people to come get me so I can watch them do things that require gloves, bodily fluids and expensive machinery. The internet cuts out whenever someone uses the microwave, maintenance people fly by the doors on strange indoor cars and Chinese lab techs slurp disgusting entrees while reading websites that look like pop-up ads. I'm learning a lot.

Anyway, as a part of this rotation we get to have our own chromosomes done, something that I am inordinately excited about. In order to do this, we obviously have to give a blood sample. I'm the last person in this rotation, so I've watched as my classmates take their empty tubes to parts unknown and then some time later, return with their very own karyotypes. Thanksgiving is sort of hosing up my whole rotation, so I've been working on getting my stuff done around the break. I asked around about getting my blood drawn, and all points seemed to indicate that I should get it done at University of Chicago, where my rotation is. I headed to the campus last Friday and told my supervisor that I was interested in getting my blood drawn. She told me that the last time the nurse came down to draw someone's blood (to the basement, of course, because where else would a genetics laboratory be?) she got in trouble because it wasn't really her job. My supervisor told me she'd see if anyone was around who could do it and left. I began the futile search for a wifi connection to pass the time. A little while later, supervisor came back followed by a lab tech.

"Lisa, Anthony can draw your blood. He used to draw blood as part of a research protocol, so he said he'd be fine doing it." Anthony walked over to me.

"Can I see your arms?" I proffered my elbowpits for his inspection. "Hmmm. You have really tiny veins."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well... I think I can do it." Think? Real great. Yes, please stick pointy things in my arm as long as you think you can do it.

"If you're really going to do this," I said, "I want to hear some confidence."

"I can do it." All right. I want these chromosomes, we'll just get it over with today and then I'll be on my way to a shiny copy of my genetic material. We agreed to meet after the lab meeting, and he went off to become more confident. I began chugging water to encourage my veins to swell.

After the seemingly eternal lab meeting, I met Anthony in the molecular lab. He had an armful of blood-letting paraphernalia, including but not limited to butterfly needles, tourniquets, tubes, tubing, alcohol and band aids. They put down an absorbent pad to hold all of this and I sat down. Anthony enlisted another woman in the lab to hold the blood tube and depress the plunger-thing when the blood started coming out, and we began. I looked away, not interested in the details of this process. I was perched on a lab stool and didn't feel like fainting onto the lab floor from such a height. I focused on anything else while things were happening to my arm. Anthony declared that the needle was going in, and I braced myself for... nothing, really. It didn't hurt at all. I didn't hear any calls of triumph for quite some time. And then:

"Uh... oh. I think I went through the artery. I didn't get it."

Hmmm. You'd think I would have felt that. I felt him pull away and turned my head to see what was going on. What was going on was that a river of blood was pouring down my arm, all over the absorbent pad, dripping down off of my shoe and puddling on the floor. Oh. That's not what we set out to do.

Anthony began a non-stop stream of apologies while pressing gauze into the bend of my arm. "I am so, so sorry. Are you okay? I am so so sorry."

And honestly, it still didn't hurt at all. If I hadn't looked over, I would not have known that I was exsanguinating. Quite a surprise, really. Luckily I excel at clotting and the source quickly dried up. Anthony cleaned up the microcosmic murder scene while I cringed at the large purple welt on my arm. Sonofabitch.

So that was an utter failure. No blood. Well, plenty of blood, but none in the tube. But still, nothing had hurt so far, so that was good.

"Do you want me to try again?"

Well that was certainly a question. I weighed my options and decided to go for it. I can't truly explain why, looking back on it. I wanted it done, I wanted my chromosomes, I didn't want to have bled all over the floor for nothing. I nodded slowly.

"One more try." He found a suitable spot and prepared to try again. The tube was set, I looked away. And this one hurt. I could feel everything and it was not good. He tried in vein (see what I did there?) for a few seconds and then gave up. No blood for the tube. More apologies and some thanks for trying and I left, feeling oddly like a failure.

For the rest of the day, every time I saw Anthony he apologized. I think I have a cookie bouquet coming my way. But honestly, most of it didn't hurt. The only (ha: only) reminder I have is an alarmingly large, reddish-purple bruise that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

And I still have to find someone to draw my blood.

Fail.

Making New Friends

Yesterday I had to leave a session to make a phone call. I do that on a fairly regular basis, when the session is a bit boring or to call my friends to brag about the rarity of the condition my patient has. This time, I ducked into an exam room to call a lab to check the cost of a test. I was transferred from the lab to the billing department and put on hold, and during the transfer I heard what might have been a bizarre, strangled scream. I have no more information about that nor does it lead to anything else later in the story; it just weirded me out.

I waited for an indeterminate amount of time. Bored, I looked to my surroundings for entertainment. Sitting on the desk in front of me was a stack of two Tupperware containers. The top one appeared to contain a clump of hair submerged in a bit of water. "Well that's werid," I thought, absently picking up the container. "Who cleans out their shower comb and saves it for the doctor?"

I checked the label. "[Patient's name]'s pin worms with eggs attached. Keep in water." Oh. Holy. Jebus. Picture me, sitting in an exam room on the phone, stuck on hold with a lab and a handful of presumably still living parasitic intestinal worms. "Quick" is an understatement describing the speed with which I set that Tupperware down. The one beneath the original nightmare contained what at first glance, still in my parasite-crazed mind, appeared to be folds of infested intestinal tissue. I soon realized that it was actually paper towels. Shut up, I was bracing myself for the worst. This one was just some pinworm eggs from the same patient. Just some parasite eggs.

Holy crap, who is this chick?! Where is she?! Did she sit in this chair?! Okay, done. Put the phone down, holding or not, and went to wash my hands. Up to the elbows. Several times. By the time I got back to the phone it was making a weird beeping noise, so I hung up and called back, only to be put back on hold. Very good phone system they have down at Baylor. At this point, the infectious disease doctor popped in to the room.

"Are you hanging out with my worms?" he asked, grabbing the disgusting containers.

"Yeah, then I had to wash my hands," I replied, then realizing that information was totally unnecessary, that now this doctor knew I was touching the worm containers, freaking out about touching the worm containers and worrying that worms could transmit their eggs through plastic to my skin. He didn't need to know that.