You can't draw blood from hand veins. Pt 2

Once inside I told the receptionist what was wrong and he gave me a form to fill out. After I did so I promptly ran to the bathroom and puked. When I felt a little better, I walked back into the overcrowded waiting room and took a seat, on the floor, well actually I laid down because that was the only comfortable position I could get in. 

During the hour and ten minute waiting period before I could see the nurse I laid on the floor shifting between sweating and freezing and uncontrollable shaking and muscle spasms, all to the prying eyes of the other A&E patients. 


Thankfully my roommate had gotten my text and offered to call the school program as well as come down to be with me. Shortly thereafter I got a call from the program and they also offered to send somebody down to be with me. I gratefully accepted. Unfortunately neither of them got there very timely. The nurse called me in before my roommate was able to make it. 

She did everything a nurse did, asked me what was wrong, checked my temperature and blood pressure, which were probably both very off.  Told me there was a two hour wait to see the actual doctor and gave me some medicine for the pain which was supposed to take half an hour to work. 

I swallowed the pills and walked into the waiting room once more where my wonderful roommate was now waiting for me. But the pain medicine wouldn't stay down and I booked it for the bathroom where I threw up again. 


As I was going to let the nurse know I had thrown up the medicine, a doctor came for me. At this point my roommate went to find the woman from the school program who had just gotten there so we were separated. I couldn't tell you the doctor's name even if I had remembered it. I believe he was Indian and I had trouble understanding his accent, although not as much as he seemed having to understand mine. After much prodding and many questions he informed me that he thought I might have appendicitis but that he wanted another doctor's opinion. 


After another period of waiting another doctor appeared. Hooray! A white doctor surely he's British!
Nope, he also had a hard time understanding my accent, but this doctor was from a country called Kosovo which only become a country in the last 20 years or so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo


He deduced that it was not in fact appendicitis but some inflammatory infection in my lower abdomen. I mentioned that I've had family with ovarian cysts. They decided to run some blood tests. 


Once in another room the Indian doctor hovered while the Kosovoian doctor attempted to draw blood from my arm. He couldn't find a vein in my arm but noticed that my hands had prominent veins (too much internet and gaming I suppose..) and he attempted to draw blood from one of the veins in my hands. 


No. You cannot draw blood from hand veins. Ouch. They left the needle in so they could use it as an IV. By this point the Kosovoian doctor was needed elsewhere so he left the Indian doctor to try and draw blood from my other arm. After he got another set of needles he put on a pair of gloves, checked for some veins, then asked one of the nurses in the hallway if she was busy. She was, he had to be the one to draw the blood. He came back, washed his hands and got a new pair of gloves, checked for veins again, then decided that he needed to fill out a form telling a nurse what medication I needed. Another session of hand washing and new gloves. 


It took a few minutes before he decided there was a vein he could use, and another few for him to get everything set up. After he was done I was left with a puddle of blood on the bed with me and a slightly irritated vein in my arm. 

After he took off to check on another patient a paramedic (according to his name tag) came in to give me some medication through the IV and orally. Luckily I didn't puke it up this time. 


Once he was done my roommate and the woman from AIFS found me and were able to keep me company until the doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 


Luckily after this I was able to go home. 


I got a call a few hours ago and apparently my blood tests came back with the result that I had some sort of infection and should come back if I experience more pain.