Sunday, September 19, 2010

Fear of needles...

I walk out to the immunization area to greet my next flu shot patient. She sits nervously as I introduce myself to her. She is wearing a sleeveless shirt (thank you!) and I can see several well-done tattoos on each arm. As I'm cleaning the area on her left arm with an alcohol swab, she turns her face and clenches her eyes shut.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm terrified of needles!"

Uhhhhhh....ok. I guess her tattoos were done with ink pens.

"But you have all these gorgeous tattoos! That one of the praying hands on your right arm is beautiful...tell me about that one!"

She looks at it, her head turned away from me, and starts to tell me about how she and her daughter went together to get tats...yadda yadda yadda, and I quickly stick her, discard the syringe in the sharps container and start applying a bandage. She looks at me and says, "Did you give me my flu shot already? I didn't even feel it!"

2 comments:

  1. People are silly sometimes.

    Nice distraction technique, btw.

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  2. The flu shot signage should say - no sweaters, long sleeve shirts, turtlenecks, etc.

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