Human Pin Cushion

Had the doctor’s appointment today to get the blood test done to screen if I have immunity to Hepatitis B, MMR, Varicella (aka chicken pox) and since I was doing a blood test, I threw in the test for cholesterol just cause I could and cause I was curious to see my cholesterol levels. Got to the appointment and brought along those vaccination and immunization forms and had that slight anxiety in me knowing that the nurse is going to extract 2 test tubes full of blood from me and that will be it.

I couldn’t be further from the truth. I hadn’t quite read the forms right and the doctor was asking me all these questions about the vaccinations I’ve had so far and how the system in Malaysia was so messed up that the Hep B thing wasn’t compulsory when I was a kid and its compulsory now and I was just trying to get my head over all those doctor-y talk and she was talking about Boostrix when she was asking me about Tetanus and I told her I got mine a while ago etc. So I told her to whack in the cholesterol test as well since I hadn’t eaten this morning and that it was fine for me to get tested. She was asking me questions about th fee jabs cause there were quite a few to screen for and she was inputting them into the computer to attach along with my blood sample.

So off I got ushered to the nurses’ office to get the blood taken out of me; I still think my blood belongs inside of me and not in 2 test tubes which were about to be shipped off to some pathology lab to be analyzed. Before the nurse took the sample from me, she was asking me the routine questions, have you done this before etc etc.

She was flipping through the forms my doctor gave her and she turned and looked at me and said, “My, we’re getting quite a lot done today aren’t we?”

I thought she meant that I was screening for so many things at once and gave little thought to it. She had prepared the 2 test tubes for the blood to be taken in and there was a random box on her table and I just thought it was part of the clutter on her table. In my defense there were a lot of things on her table and the box sort of blended into the background.

I didn’t look too much to my left (which was where the table and the equipment were) cause I just wanted to get it over and done with and not look too much at the massive needle puncturing my vein and slurping the blood out of me. When she finished taking the blood I thought I was good to go after filling in the right forms for my insurance claim. And then she started opening up the blue box that said Boostrix on it.

My brain froze for a second.

Wait a minute, Boostrix is a fricking vaccine!!! The thought ran in my head and then I realised I’m about to have another needle stuck into me for the day. I did not wake up today expecting to be pricked so many times like a human pin cushion. The first jab was bad enough that I went, “Ow, ow” like a little baby when she was doing it. I think I must have scared the 2 people outside waiting to see the nurse.

The second needle wasn’t as bad as the first, seeing as the needle was much smaller than the first one. This time I think the nurse didn’t swab my skin before injecting me, but I can’t be 100% certain she didn’t. At the end of it all I was just happy to walk out of the nurses’ office carrying that bright yellow post-it to bring to the front counter for insurance. Then I remembered vaguely the nurse and the doctor telling me to get my Mantoux testing done and book it at the front counter. I would have thought its some breath test cause it tests for TB, but the receptionist was telling me they scratch your skin and read/measure it 3 days later.

I walked out of the Health Services Office feeling pretty banged up but proud of my battle scars with the 2 cotton balls stuck to my arm with the white medical sticky tape.

Met up with Lin after that to get brekkie since I hadn’t eaten since the night before and I showed her my scars and looked more closely at my blood test puncture wound. I noticed how there was a superficial scratch that had bleed slightly. The nurse had somehow managed to scratch me with the needle in the process of either taking the needle out of my arm or putting the needle into my arm. Either way I have a scratch bigger than both my puncture wounds and I’m not a happy customer/client/patient.

Met up with Amani and Mary before Mental Health class and found out that the Mantoux test is much worse than it sounds. Apparently they inject you with a bacteria and read/measure the size of the lump of your hand to see how sensitive you are to the bacteria. And its going to hurt like nobody’s business.

I think my eyes must have dilated out of fear and hearing that words “very painful” coming out of both Mary and Amani’s mouths. I don’t deal with pain or needles very well. Damn vaccinations and screenings.

The reason I have to endure the pain and torture is cause it is a requirement for clinical placements next year to get jabs and screenings and swabs (I hated the MRSA testing, they stuck a cotton bud up my nose) to make sure that when dealing with clients there is a much lowered health risk to both me and the clients.

Speaking about fieldwork, we had part 1 of the 2 part briefing about the structure of our fieldwork for next year. I’m going to be a VERY VERY busy woman next year its not even amusing. Though it is throughly exciting and stressful at the same time.

The way the new fieldwork model works is the year is divided up into 6 blocks, with a week in between these blocks. Each block is 7 weeks in length and we have to complete 4 out of the 6 blocks to do the 1000 mandatory for registration with the OTRBWA. Which means we’ve got 28 weeks of working without pay, 40 hours a week, doing our portfolios (1 for each placement, so that’s 4 portfolios), report to uni, do assignments, have intensive teaching and tutorials and do our part-time jobs. And it also has to include 1 self-directed placement which can mean doing a project, which I think is the most fun part of all and 3 supervised clinical pracs. Out of the 4 pracs, one has to either be rural, interstate or international or OT Abroad prac. I’m seriously considering going to Melbourne for one of my pracs just cause I want to learn about the system there and things like that.

I’m more worried about the ability to get to the pracs cause sometimes they can allocate you to pracs that are waaaaaay out in woop woop land and you’d still have to get there in the morning every day. I seriously hope I’ll get pracs near here and everything. That’s a long way away though.

I’ve got so many plans running though my head about which blocks I want and how I want to work at Myers during the summer which might get my foot in the door for working weekend shifts or something there in the future cause they pay pretty good rates.

Uni has been so full on lately, all I ever do is come home, eat dinner, shower, do house chores, read stuff, sleep get up for uni, go to uni and repeat cycle all weekday and work all weekend. I feel like such a nerd but I’m proud of it

I think I’ve rambled on enough for one day, my left arm feels stiff and I can’t really use my shoulder that well after the jab. Bah, damn vaccinations. Well, it’s good night from me now