That Poor Little Liar

A couple of years into my career, I decided to increase my life insurance I get through work. As part of that, I needed to have a blood test – apparently if you test positive for heroin, you may need to pay a higher life insurance premium. Not a big deal; I wasn’t going to test positive for anything except levels of nicotine and caffeine that would kill a small toddler. The life insurance company would send someone by my home or work to draw blood. So this was no problem at all. Nice and convenient.

I was working deep nights at the time, so I would get off work, go home, and be in bed by about 8am if I was lucky. One night, I ran a sweet highway grinder. I don't remember the specifics, but there was stuff on fire, a semi-truck of rattlesnakes overturned, and a tornado hit a school bus. All at once, if my memory serves me correctly. Whatever actually happened, it was an event big enough to be on the news the next morning. I was first on-scene and ran the call pretty well, I thought. Two other ambulances from my agency showed up and transported patients, as well. I intubated two patients before the second-in units got on scene. I remember that specifically because I wanted to get both tubes; the next unit had a medic I didn’t like to share with (still don't). Between that and a ton of other calls that night, I was exhausted at the end of that shift and crawled into my bed.

Three hours later, my wife woke me to come downstairs. The mobile phlebotomist had arrived to our home for her visit. I threw on a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, went downstairs to the kitchen, and took a seat at the kitchen table. My plan was to stay conscious for the three minutes it would take to draw a tube of bloods, then go back to bed without fully waking up. The phlebotomist was a chatty lady, though.

“This isn’t my normal full-time job, you know.”

I grunted in return.

“Yeah, I am actually a paramedic.”

Grunt.

“Did you see that huge thing on the highway last night? With the rattlesnakes and the tornado? I ran that.”

Weird. I thought that was me. But I was tired and didn’t especially care, so I grunted noncommittally at her again.

“Yeah, it was a tough call, but professionals just get the job done,” she explained to me. “I’ve been doing this too long to let things like that trouble me.”

I upgraded from grunting: “That must be a tough job. I bet you’re proud.”

“Yeah, it is tough. I do this [draw blood in people’s kitchens] for a break. Wow, you don’t have very good veins, do you,” she told me. It was news to me. I like to think I have fine veins, thank you very much.

My wife walked into the kitchen at that point and overheard the last part of the conversation. “What do you do?” she asked the phlebotomist.

“Paramedic,” the lady replied. This should be good, I thought to myself.

“Oh? My husband is a paramedic too! What a coincidence!”

The phlebotomist turned to me. “Really? Where do you work?”

I nodded my head at the jacket draped over the back of the chair I was sitting in.

Seriously. No exaggeration. It was obvious...

“Denver,” I told her.

My houseguest turned white and began to stammer something.

My wife turned to me. “You were on a highway thing with rattlesnakes and a tornado last night too, weren’t you? Did you see each other? Or were there two crashes?” my wife inquired, innocently.

The odds of a successful first-time venous draw was diminishing by the second. The phlebotomist was pale, stammering, and had a distinct tremor in her hand. She gulped air and tried to focus. Stabbing someone in the arm is a great distractor. I offered to stick myself, being that I had poor vasculature.

She declined my offer and drew my blood. It worked out that she was a brand-new EMT, applying for her first job at a nearby private ambulance company. Poor, dumb EMT. She probably talked up her job as a paramedic to dozens of phlebotomy clients before stumbling into my house.

But, really, I don’t have that much sympathy for her embarrassment. The jacket was right there on the chair.