On Kindness

Our lab assistant finished the demonstration, divested herself of both soiled gloves, and said, “All right. Partner up, pick a station, and start prepping. Palpations only; I don’t want you moving on until a professional is watching!”

I pressed myself tightly against John’s side. “I can’t do this,” I whispered. “I’m going to barf.”

“You’ve been saying that every five minutes since I picked you up this morning, and you haven’t barfed yet. Relax. You’ll do just fine.”

“Oh, and one more thing!” announced the assistant. “You’ll need to practice on every single student in the class at least once, which means that I don’t want to see you teaming up with your table partner and getting too comfortable with just one person. So, for example, you and you” – conveniently, she pointed at John and me – “are not allowed to be partners.”

The rest of the blood drained from my face until my skin matched my labcoat and an uncomfortable ringing filled my ears, and I looked up at John, who frowned in agreement. I was already terrified, and that awful woman had just taken away my last vestige of comfort! He nudged me and smiled a little, reassuringly – and then he walked away.

My new partner was small, middle-aged woman who slid into the patient chair before I could volunteer myself, so I took a deep breath. “Hi. My name is Nikki, and I’m from the lab; I’m here to take a blood sample. Can you give me your name and date of birth?” She was kind, and more importantly, she was infinitely patient with my fumbling lack of confidence. Still, I longed for John’s easy veins.

I wrapped the tourniquet tightly around my partner’s bicep and waited, but nothing appeared. I palpated. The median antecubital vein was right where I suspected it to be, and I could feel it with my fingertips, but there wasn’t so much as a smudge of dusky bluish-green that I would be able to use as a landmark later on, once I’d sterilized the inside of her elbow and couldn’t touch the site again without contaminating it. I would just have to remember where I’d found that vein and pray to God that it would still be in the same place two minutes later. I uncapped a vacutainer needle, twisted it into the collector – and promptly froze.

“I can’t do this,” I told the lab assistant.

“Of course you can,” she said impatiently. “Beveled edge up. The vein is right there.“

“But I can’t see it!”

“Neither can I, but I know exactly where it is, and so do you. Now put the needle in it.”

I pulled the skin taut with my left thumb, just below the disinfected draw site, and stared hard at the place where I knew her vein should be. The vacutainer sheath rattled against the tube in my other shaking hand, and I tried to remember how to breathe. It seemed like such an inconsequential little thing, but I had never been so scared in my life.

I thought of all the people who believed I could do it – the ones who thought I was silly for taking a phlebotomy class and then panicking uncontrollably at the prospect of poking someone with a needle, but who loved me, anyway – and I felt warm inside, even as my hands shook and my pulse thundered. I glimpsed John across the room and Kyle peeking tentatively through the doorway and, in my head, I heard Michael’s song – a song written just for me! These people (and more, still) would continue to love me, even if I failed, so I held my breath and pushed smoothly forward.

A single heartbeat came and went, and hot, scarlet blood slithered into the tube.

“…did I do it?” I was flabbergasted.

“Of course you did. Nice angle. Now get the tourniquet off, take out the needle, and apply pressure with your gauze pad.” The lab assistant walked away while I stared dumbly at the red, but ultimately unbruised little speck in the crook of my partner’s elbow.

“Were you nervous?” she asked, watching me tape down a nice, tight pressure bandage. “I’ve been worrying about it off and on since yesterday.”

“Since yesterday? I’ve been sick to my stomach for six whole days just thinking about it!” I laughed.

“Then why are you here?”

It wasn’t a rude question. Her tone mixed curiosity and a sort of gentle, almost motherly concern.

“I want to help people,” I answered, and she smiled. I laughed. “I know, I know – that’s kind of the default answer for anyone doing anything in the medical field. I just love to do good things for people, but I can’t bear the thought of causing them even the tiniest bit of pain, even if it will make them better in the long run. I’ll have to get over it, eventually, I suppose.”

“You’d better,” said the lab assistant, eavesdropping.

“Well, I don’t think you need to get over anything,” my partner told me quietly, still smiling. “There’s no such thing as too much kindness.”