tb or not tb, that is the question.

on monday, i received my every-three-year basic tb test. it hurt, by the way. really. instead of in the good old days when the nice doctor quickly pricked your inner forearm and then gave you a lollipop in your favorite flavor, now it's a big needle that injects a lima bean-sized amount of liquid and burns. and then you bleed. and you can't put a bandaid on it, so you bleed while sitting at your computer. or in a meeting. or having lunch. great. so this nurse who came at me with a needle, and at first i thought about going head first out the 4th story bay window. i told her that i have a tendancy of having mini-anxiety issues with needles, and that frequently afterwards (it's not like i'm shooting up and have this experience ALL the time), i tend to get light headed and faint or pass out. i tried giving a couple of examples like:

• when i got my allergy testing done, they did a back test where they injected little dosages of things like mold, grass, pollen, etc. on my back in a nice grid-like fashion. there were supposed to something like 30 different injections, so i asked the nurse to tell him what she was doing so i knew what was going on. i kept feeling stinging and sharp implements prodding my skin and all. well, she said i didn't need to know, and 10 seconds later i was out. they had to bring my mom in, put cold towels on my face, and give me orange juice. what's worse, they refused to continue the testing, so i never found out what i was allergic to. ha.
• in college, i got the meningitis vaccine. and so did pretty much everyone else. we all lined up in one of the large common rooms in the student center and it was sort of like a cattle call. you just went over to the nurse who yelled "next," gave him/her your arm, got pricked, went and sat at a row of chairs for 10 minutes to make sure you're ok and all, had some orange juice, and left. well, that would have been good and all if someone had been stationed there to monitor those needing to be monitored. instead, i put my head between my legs and dozed for about 30 minutes. and no one noticed.
• i gave blood here in san francisco a few years ago, and it actually went pretty well. todd even picked me up in our 4-wheel vehicle at the time (and it wasn't the bus). so a year or so later, i went back to do it again, but it went badly. they couldn't find a vein. and then the nurse kept taking out the needle and reinserting it trying to find a "better vein." 3 nurses all looked perplexed and there i was, sitting into some psuedo-doctor lazy boy with my arm strapped down and blood going everywhere and my heart beating so fast i'm sure the neighbors could hear it. but after all of that, they told me never to come back again. i'd been blacklisted by the blood center of the pacific. but, i still had to sit at the counter for 10 minutes and sip cran-orange juice in order to get my blood sugar back up to normal. and then 4 weeks later, i got a new blood donor card thanking me for my recent donation.
  

right, so i got my tb test and walk the 15 feet back to my circular non-cube before my arm began to feel warm and the room spun a few times, but i had water and a granola bar to help tide me over. and when she comes back to read my arm today, i so want to say i told you so. but she'll have my whole future in her hands (literally), so i think i'll suck on a tootsie roll pop and keep my mouth shut.