transcended.net

I hate needles. I mean, I really hate them. I spent pretty much the first twenty-two years of my life avoiding them whenever possible (i.e. all but one time when I was about thirteen or so and I pretty much had a panic attack afterwards). Now, of course, I can’t avoid them, but even after what’s probably close to a hundred draws I still can’t watch them draw my blood. Or anyone else’s.

Recently I’ve been having my blood drawn a lot more than usual. My poor veins have been tapped so often I’m pretty sure the marks are permanent. You know how I know I’ve been having my blood drawn way too often?

Last trip to the lab

Phlebotomist: *takes a look at my arm* Oh hun, how often have you been coming in?

Me: About every other week or so.

Phlebotomist: I can tell. I can see still see the marks. Good thing you have good veins!

She was super sympathetic and the whole exchange sort of took me by surprise because I’ve had her once or twice before and she’s always very nice and courteous but we’ve never really chit-chatted before. And it seemed like she felt really bad for me and it was very sweet of her but it made me feel kind of weird.

I mean, wow, you really have to be getting poked with way too many needles if a phlebotomist is feeling bad for you.

The funniest part of the whole thing? She should have seen the other arm, which had a fresh 5-day old IV wound on it!

Anyway, to sum up, I hate needles.

So why am I actually considering acupuncture? You know, the thing where they STAB a hundred litttle NEEDLES into your FLESH.

Yes, I’m actually starting to feel that desperate. And I’m starting to realize that I have to do more. Not just because I want to get pregnant but also just because I really want to get off all these meds. And since evidently, just taking the meds doesn’t *fix* me, I must need to do more. I’m also planning to go on a one month beef, dairy and candy fast (Paul is going to do it with me as soon as we finish off the meat from our last Costco trip). The more I look into nutrition-related information pertaining to lupus patients the more annoyed I am that doctors don’t tell you about things like the fact that dairy is highly correlated to lupus flares and autoimmune issues in general. My doctors are extremely intelligent men but why is it that they a) don’t know these things or b) don’t bother to tell their patients?

I’m trying to be more pro-active about my health as opposed to sitting by and hoping the meds do what they failed to do last time.

Or maybe this is the only thing I can do to feel like I have a tiny bit of control over all of this. Who knows, maybe getting poked with a zillion teeny needles won’t do a damn thing, but at least I’ll know that I did everything I could to get better (for real).