Sunday, May 21, 2006

Medical Malpractice

I swear on all things holy that the following incident is 100% true and not embellished in any way.

I had to have a medical test done at the hospital the other day which involves injecting me with radioactive dye. So the first technician calls me back to the injection room and explains to me how the whole shebang will go. She sits me down and starts cleaning my arm and telling me the radioactive stuff will have no side effects. (A lie). Those who know me best know that I can't stand needles, and so I always turn my head to the side so that I can't see what she's doing. But as she's getting ready to administer the dye, I hear her turn her head to the side and yell to another technician,
"Is this a clean needle?"

At this point, my head whips around and I look at her. She has the needle uncapped, is holding it in her right hand while holding my arm steady with her left hand.

I hear the guy's response from the back. A clear, loud, "NO."

Excuse my language mom, but all I could think was are you freaking kidding me? (Except in my head the words weren't censored.) My mouth dropped open and I was completely speechless. The technician shrugged, said a simple, "oh", capped the needle and threw it away in one of those biohazard things.

I honest to God could not form words, because had I been able to, I'd have jumped out of that chair. Instead, she simply grabbed a new needle (at least I'm hoping at this point that it's a new needle) and injected me.

The whole 2 minutes were really and truly surreal. I'm still half tempted to call or write to the hospital complaint line about the situation. These are supposed to be medical professionals and they can't even keep their needles straight.