Tuesday, December 02, 2008

hemoglobin is the key

Today really was not such a good day. In order, these bad things happened before 11:30am:

1) It took an hour and a half to get to work, some of which I spent on the phone with some incompetent people from FedEx who assured me that even though their system has no proof of it, my entry into the Golden Heart contest was delivered last week. I'll just have to hope they're right.

2) When I got to work, I went to the wellness center to get a routine blood test. They couldn't find a vein in either arm, so they tried going in through my right hand and failed. Another nurse tried going through my left hand, got a bit of blood -- and then the vein rolled away and she started digging around with the needle to try to find it. After having told her five minutes earlier that I have no trouble with needles, I almost fainted. They had to put my legs up and bring me cold compresses and the whole nine yards.

3) When I could finally stand up, I went to get my allergy shots. This time, the grass shot reacted, and on top of the remaining wooziness from my near-fainting-spell, it was more than I could take, so I decided to go home for the rest of the day.

4) In retrospect, driving while woozy was not smart, although I didn't really think I could lie down on the couch in my office for a couple of hours. I decided to stop at Peter's Cafe in Millbrae to get my blood sugar up -- where I discovered that they're no longer open 24 hours a day. Tragedy!

5) While sitting in the booth waiting for my lifesaving food, I checked my email on my blackberry and got my first official rejection letter from an agent.

Blah. So I spent three hours sleeping this afternoon to recover from the fainting feeling. Then I watched "What Not to Wear" before doing some work this evening. I didn't do enough for my real job, so I need to go in early tomorrow. But, I did thoroughly rewrite my query letter and submit it to another agent -- you just have to get back on the horse, I suppose, and I would rather get back on the horse with the agent-querying process rather than with the blood-drawing process.

Tomorrow is another day, which means I should go to bed!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lincoln Township checking in on the blood test. "Water is the key!" If I don't load up on water, 3 or 4 glasses, in the two or three hours prior to a blood draw I am likely to undergo multiple sticks.

f...... said...

Did I ever tell you the story of John inadvertently peer pressuring me into donating blood in the SLE lounge my freshman year?... I thought I was only going down to turn in my paper -- lucky me. I didn't want to b/c I was on the weight threshold (so not the case now)... somehow I made it into the donation chair while some other SLE kid passed out right next to me. Sheesh.

Sara said...

@Lincoln Township - good advice! I avoid water on principle since I prefer tea, but I'll try it next time.

@felicia - I always knew that if SLE kids lived a thousand years ago, they would have been weaklings who died early deaths; my experience with a blood test and your story about a fellow SLE'r corroborates my belief.