Blood Draw Gone Bad

So we went to the Out-patient-Peds-whatever at Banner Desert to have some blood drawn. Apparently that was supposed to be better than going to Sonora Lab where they don’t know how to efficiently draw blood from babies. When we got to the outpatient facility it seemed that the doctor wanted an extraordinary amount of blood to run his tests (these are for the thyroid function, etc). I reminded the nurse that a) although her hospital band says “4 mo” she only weighs 7 lbs, hence not a lot of blood inhabits her body and b) she’s already anemic so please spare whatever blood that does inhabit her body. The nurses were nice enough -- and acted confident enough. They tried poking arm #1 first - with no luck. They tried arm #2, twice, again no luck. They started prodding at her feet - sort of bending them tight at the ankles so the veins would show up better…and then asked if I minded if they “try the scalp” to which I promptly told them “YES I MIND.”
I was actually surprised that they asked -- because if they really didn’t think they could get the blood from anywhere else I don’t know that they need my permission to stick a needle in her head. Anyway, one nurse (the one holding Chloe down, not doing the poking) said, “Oh, is this your first baby?”
NOPE. It’s not. I asked her if I was acting like she was my only child -- like all overprotective or something. What am I supposed to act like when you ask me if you can stick a needle in my baby’s head? SURE! Go right ahead! I told them that if they were going to try and poke each of her feet (I don’t even know if they have enough nurses for that… I think there is a standing 2 poke minimum per nurse…) that they could go for the vein in her head - if they were positive they could get enough blood - and with only one poke.
This is not a nice site. In the NICU they purposely dodge the head because it’s sort of traumatic to walk in and see a huge IV in the scalp. They swear it isn’t any worse than a vein in their arm/leg, but it looks a little worse. Chloe happens to have a sweet vein above her left temple that is big and an easy hit. I know it was used in the NICU - but very little. The non-poking nurse gets out a rubber band and puts it around Chloe’s head -- make-shift tourniquet-style and they decide to give her some sucrose (sugar water) to get her to stop screaming. They asked if in the NICU they ever gave Chloe sucrose and I told them that she had been given it and I was highly doubtful that sugar was going to dull the pain of a needle in the head.
**Back Story:
When Chloe got very, very sick around day 56 in the NICU the Infectious Disease doc (“ID guy”) was consulted by Chloe’s Neo to see if they needed to do a lumbar puncture (spinal tap, “LP”) to determine whether or not she had meningitis. Up to this point I had been pretty willing to sign consent forms, etc. for them to do procedures on Chloe… surgery, blood transfusions, whatever. For some reason I was not down with the LP. Chloe had just come off a huge sickness that made so weak and very unable to breathe. Every time the nurse would turn her - just a slight shift from one side to the other, Chloe could not breathe. It was horrifying. So I asked the ID doc and several other doctors/nurses to explain the LP to me. It sounded terrible. They had to wad the baby up into a ball (in so many words) and poke a needle in her spine (or between it or at the base of it or whatever) in a very small area to obtain some spinal fluid. I really wavered on this one. The alternative to them was that there was no alternative. They needed to do the LP in order to get a better idea of how sick Chloe really was. One of the nurses told me that they would give Chloe sucrose and it would help to release endorphins or something so that she wouldn’t “feel” the pain of the needle in her back.
Um, really? Which baby exactly did you interview to see how *little* pain they felt? When I was getting my epidural I didn’t ask for anything except for some SUGAR! Could I have a lollipop while you shove that huge needle in my spine please?!
So end of story: I signed the consent, they poked her 4 times in the back and did not obtain any spinal fluid. Zero. Zilch. Allllll for nothing. Hope Chloe at least liked the sugar.**
Anyway, they poked her once in the head and obtained not even half of the blood they needed to do the tests. The poking-nurse said that she could try to “squeeze” Chloe’s head to see if they could obtain anymore drops. I butted in and said that NO, that would be all for today. Geez. I then took a photo of Chloe’s head and sent it to one of her former nurses for some comfort. *Nicole and Tori never would have poked the head*
I know it’s their job and I know it is necessary, but it isn’t any less terrible when your baby has to repeatedly go through this stuff. Once in the NICU I overheard a nurse saying that they usually ask the parents to step out when they are starting an IV because it is hard for the parents to watch their baby get poked. I think it’s because it almost always takes more than one poke. No one wants to see two pokes. I also heard her say that when the parents are freaking out the nurse feels like telling them “it’s either an IV or your baby dies.” Nice! To be honest, after around day 75 or so, I felt the same way. Some parents would come in and get all emotional about one IV and some stupid lights for jaundice. Pa-lease. Your baby is going to be fine. But you never really know the back story -- maybe their last baby died from lesser issues? My point is that I don’t hold this attitude against the nurses who have it because it’s their job to get the job done. If a whining, crying Mother refuses an IV and then a baby gets severely ill, I would be one pissed off nurse. I’m sure they see this sort of thing all the time.
Bottom-line: We still don’t have enough blood for the tests and Chloe has a nice fat bruise on her head. Next time, she’ll wear a cap.