Sometimes it is very difficult to "nail a stick" - medical street slang for being able to draw blood for various exams. On one particularly challenging patient, I was getting very frustrated because I couldn't find any veins. I should have suspected as much, since I was sent in after a nurse was unable to nail the stick. Let me learn you something: if the nurse can't do it, it most likely can't be done!!
Well, I kept trying to locate a vein and hopefully "see the flash" - meaning blood fills the butterfly tube indicating you have hit the vein, so go ahead and push in your test tubes in the other end to draw the blood. Anyway, I kept getting nothing and at one point I got so frustrated that I used my Arabic language skills (very minimal - I just know the cuss words) and said "yeelan abook" under my breath. I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I think it loosely translates into something like $#*t.
My comment caused the patient to suddenly look at me with wide eyes and a quick "oolek!" Yes, that's right - turns out my patient with a very NON-Arabic sounding name was indeed of Egyptian background and understood what I said!
Luckily, the patient was quite understanding and we both got a great laugh out of it. And in fact, as a result, the patient who was quite on the verge of refusing any further needle sticks allowed us to keep trying. Eventually, another nurse was able to nail the stick.
And I learned to keep my comments...ALL my comments, to myself :)
Great Story!!! Even had a moral included!
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