I spent the entire morning at the phlebotomist’s office to take a three hour blood test. It was clearly the seventh circle of hell for me. Regular readers know that I don't do well in these situations. Here are a few places that I would rather have been:
-Stuck inside the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland
-A clown convention
-Junior High
I had to take a three hour glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes. It is a test that, if I fail, my doctor can do nothing for me and there’s little I can do. Gestational diabetes doesn’t hurt the baby at all (in fact, babies of GD mothers tend to be fat and happy at birth – to the tune of ten or eleven pounds) and is not a reliable indicator of developing diabetes after pregnancy for either the mother or the baby.
So after fasting, I go to the doctor's office and drink this stanky-sugary-ass dextrose solution and then sit still. For. Three. Hours. They take my blood at the beginning and once an hour, four times total.
I had already taken the one-hour version of this test, and got a 133, below the 140 threshold that a lot of OBs use to screen for GD. My doctor is the overly cautious type, and set her threshold at 130, which required me to take the three hour version of the test.
I asked the phlebotomist what would happen if I broke down and dared to eat a stick of gum or a Rolaid or purse lint or something. She said that she had a SIX HOUR version of this test that she could force me to take instead. I quickly promised not to eat until the test was done. Just to be sure, I didn’t even LOOK at the fresh pack of Extra Cool Green Apple Gum in my purse. I can resist anything but temptation, right?
Three hours later, I had been poked in my poor arm so much that it really hurt to draw blood. Each draw was progressively more painful. My veins just weren’t having any of this. I felt like a week-old mylar balloon: still floating mid-air, but clearly fighting a losing battle with gravity. I was starving and weak to the point that I would have chewed my arm out of a trap to get out of there.
I don't remember the drive to Carl's Jr., but that burger was my lifeline back to lucidity. The chocolate shake was her (pointing to my uterus) idea, though. I would have opted for a tofu and lawn clipping health shake, were it up to me.
I would have refused the test, but that would make me a BAD MOTHER and I’d much rather wait until Spanky’s 12 and hear it from her directly when I refuse to let her walk out of the house in a mini skirt and bikini top.
I will remind her of this day the first time she comes home from school with a B.