On being held at needle point

When I arrived at dialysis last night there were sharp intakes of breath and much oohing and aahing all round as the nurses looked at my arm. It is a bit of a spectacle I have to admit. The back of my hand looks as though I've been dip dyed with my knuckles being darkest and the colours graduating through blue, purple and green up towards my wrist.

The hairy side of my arm is a revolting jaundiced yellow. The underside is multiple shades of purple and working back down to my palm, well that's actually quite pretty and rather like marble with the usual healthy flesh colour being shot through with pink and blue.

Of course at the centre of it all is the wound itself which is surrounded by vivid pinky-red skin because it it most definitely infected. Sister Mac said I needed to peel off the Dermabond myself so it could be swabbed.

Another sharp intake of breath but it's hard to refuse when someone's waving a 1 & a half inch large bore needle at you.

So peel it off I did and I nearly passed out in the process. Imagine trying to peel off sunburnt skin when it's about 2mm thick and stuck down with superglue. I'm seeing stars just writing about it.

A little later I was supposed to start an infusion of intravenous antibiotic. It was being administered by Nurse Blusher who was being assessed on the task by Sister Mac. Sister Mac whispered to me that I had to refuse to have the drug as a test for Nurse Blusher. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it but remember Sister Mac is the one with the large bore needles, so I agreed.

Nurse Blusher went through her strict routine step by step and when it came to the point where she had to ask me if I agreed to receiving the drug, I just launched in to my spiel of having thought about things and really I'm already taking 2 oral antibiotics I didn't really want to take the IV one as well especially as it is so urotoxic (kills off the kidneys), blah blah blah.

The poor girl just went red (hence her code name) and asked me if I was joking. I managed to keep a straight face and kept up the charade with some input from Sister Mac until she went through the protocol that she was being tested on.

Fortunately she passed and Sister Mac said I deserved an Oscar. Who says you can't have fun when you're ill?