The Luck of the (Blood) Draw
Last Saturday, Brad and I had our bi-annual blood draw and breakfast. An event where he inadvertently fasts with me, drives me to the lab to get blood drawn then takes me to out breakfast, because he’s a good husband.
Instead of going to the lab in our old neighborhood in order to visit our favorite breakfast spot near our old house, we decided to go to the one in Avon so we could run some errands after breakfast.
The lab was quiet and there were only a few of us going in to get stabbed tests that day, so they called me back along with another person and put us in cubes 2 and 3. There was some confusion when the phlebotomists came back because they thought it was cubes 1 and 2. But somehow I got lucky on that particular draw.
I put my arm out and she began looking for veins. Then she noticed my medical id that I almost didn’t put on that morning.
“What’s your bracelet for?”
“I have diabetes.”
“Type 1?”
“Yes.”
“Me too! Do you have a Dexcom?”
“Yes I do.”
She turned her wrist and her Apple Watch screen lit up with a Dexcom graph.
“Where do you wear your sensor?”
We chatted about sensor and pump site placements, artificial pancreas research and other type 1 things while she drained my blood. When she handed me the specimen cup for my urine test, she asked, “Do you like your endo?”
“I guess so. I’m still seeing the person they could fit me in with when I was first diagnosed and moved to Cleveland. She doesn’t have very many type 1 patients or Dexcom users.”
She told me who she sees (at the location closest to my house) and that she really likes her doctor. “She really understands what it’s like in real life.”
I asked her to write down the endo’s name. She said she would write it down and give it to my husband. I thanked her and did my last test.
When I walked out, Brad told me someone gave him a card with a doctor’s name on it for me. I explained what had just happened.
We say that things happen for a reason. What I didn’t say already is that on Friday night, I had told Brad that maybe it’s time to try to find a new endocrinologist. We could have gone to the other lab like usual and I wouldn’t have met the her. I could have chosen not to wear my medical id because I’d be with Brad all day and I’d have never had the conversation about diabetes. They could have told the phlebotomists the correct cube numbers and I would have gotten the other one who was working. Saturday really was the luck of the draw.
For breakfast, Brad took me to Cafe Melissa in Avon Lake, where I had a fantastic Greek omelette.
Happy coincidence for certain.
I referred your blog to the TUDiabetes.org blog page for the week of June 27, 2016.
What a fortunate coincidence. Sometimes I think things like this are supposed to happen