Thank goodness THAT'S over with

I had my blood drawn today, for my long-overdue bloodwork.

Man, I hate needles. I'm so glad that's over with. I'm also not over-fond of the fasting aspect of the bloodwork, but that's not too horrid.

But the worst part of all -- or what USED to be the worst part, before I found a solution -- was the having to give a urine sample. I hated driving to the doctor's office with a full bladder. My solution was to request, and receive, a sterile sample cup to take home. Now I can take care of that particular business at home, right when I get up, and not have to be in discomfort for any length of time. Which is good, because you just KNOW that Murphy's Law will be in full swing otherwise. Meaning, when I'm driving to the doc's office without having given that sample yet, it's almost a guarantee that I'll hit every flipping red light between here and there, and then I'll need eight years to find a parking place once I arrive. It's a combination of events I just love, like I love a hole in the head. ;-)

Anyway, I've provided all the requisite samples of blood and so on, so now it's just a waiting game until the results come back. I can think of one set of numbers that I'm reasonably confident will be in the normal range (at which point, I can go back to the blood doctor and get discharged). I have no idea what the other numbers are going to look like, except I hope they're either normal, or close enough to the mark that it won't take much to fix them. My last test had a couple of numbers that were only a point or two out of the desired range, so I'm hoping those are where I want them to be this time around.

I feel sorry for the girl who was working at the doc's office today -- by herself. She's in there drawing blood, and she had NObody in there to help her answer phones. So the phones were going unanswered. I can just imagine the patients calling in and getting the "this machine does not take messages" recording repeatedly... had I been one of them, I'd have had steam coming out of my ears. Let me tell you that the phones DID NOT STOP RINGING while I was there. Oh, how they need to revamp their office staff setup... they need at least one dedicated telephone person in there, for starters. Then add in a voice mail system, a back line so that pharmacies and doctors can call in without being stuck in the same busy-signal-hell as patients, and office emails. And freaking CREDIT CARDS. I often have to wait for change, which someone has to retrieve from upstairs, when I pay a $15 copay with a $20 bill. A credit card machine would mean that people don't have to fart around running to the second floor every time someone needs to break a large or medium-sized bill. One time, one of the workers even gave me my change out of her own wallet, not to make me have to wait. I mean, come on. This is 2012. We should be beyond all this.

Oh, well. I'm done ranting. I'm going back to my coffee.