TCH Bloodwork

Well, we made the dreaded trip to TCH yesterday at 3pm (because Sophie refused to have a nap) to get Sophie's bloodwork done. In case I haven't mentioned, her GI suggested some bloodwork be done because we have tried all the medications for acid reflux, and none of them really fix things. The only thing left to do is to do bloodwork to test for a food allergy or celiac disease (which is a complicated disease in which someone's body doesn't take in nutrients due to their allergy to gluten, wheat, rye....and many other things). We should get the results back in a week or so.

To get back to the actual blood test, I do not wish this upon anyone! I truly do appreciate the staff and nurses at TCH though, the bad experience had nothing to do with them, they are very talented nurses. It started out bad once they had to look for a vein in Sophie's arm, the screaming started then and never really stopped. Poor girl, apparently has very hard veins to find. (Which has nothing to do with the fact that she's small, because the kiddo before her was only 8 months old and he had this blood drawn as well). So, they had to search for a long time....then once they actually put the needle in, it seems like time slowed. Who knew that their blood flowed soooo slowly into those tubes. Also, for all of her tests, they had to fill up 5 tubes! I thought that the blood moving so slowly was the worst part, until I realized that the nurse was taking out the needle without having filled up all the tubes. She said that Sophie's vein would have collapsed, so she had to stop and go to the other arm. I will say, that made me a little sick to think of the whole process starting over again on her other little arm. Oddly enough, Sophie didn't cry any harder when they put the needle in her other arm....so it must not have actually hurt that bad. After singing "The Wheels On The Bus" about 2 times (with me crying), plus a few made up verses, Sophie actually stopped crying....for a minute, until she looked over and noticed the needle once again. After what seemed like forever, Sophie crying and me crying (the nurse even asked if I was going to be okay), it was all over and they had put purple bandages on both of her arms. I will say that I was thankful for her paci and blankie yesterday, they both calmed her down like nothing else! Of course by the time we got to the car she was signing "help" for me to take her tight bandages off. Then she was asleep within 5 minutes of leaving TCH, thank goodness. I still say that she's much stronger than I am, because I would have been complaining about my arms for hours later, but she never once pointed out her "boo-boo's" on her arms.

What was just as bad, was the fact that Nick had to restrain her while they were drawing the blood, so for the rest of the day Sophie wanted nothing to do with him....poor daddy! So I give him props for being strong as well. My heart also goes out to those parents of kiddos who have cancer or who are very sick and have to get their blood taken often, I know it can't get any easier. As a sad keepsake I had to take pictures of her poor little arms today, they actually look better than I thought they would.