27 August 2012

First day of tests

Today I had my first day of tests at the hospital, a prerequisite to start the obesity platform programme.  When I had my talk with the psychologist at the end of July, she told me I needed to schedule an appointment in order to get bloodworks done.  The leaflet she handed me over said that it would take about three hours, which I found a bit strange because even with my bad veins, it wouldn't take that long to fill a couple of vials.

At the scheduled time, I was sitting in the waiting room with several other programme candidates. A nurse came to fetch us and lead us to a room with four beds, telling us to get comfy. Huh?  Apparently, the scheduled appointment was more than just regular bloodworks.  They also planned a glucose tolerance test.  If you never had this type of test done, it consists of fasting for 8/10 hours (i.e no eating or drinking from 10 PM onwards) before getting blood drawn.  After that initial sample, they make you drink a solution of 75g glucose (extremely sweet and sticky, think warm flat fanta syrup) and afterwards take three vials of blood every half hour for a 2 hours period) to see how quickly your body disposes of the excess sugar.

Problems is that with my bad veins, the IV they placed in order to draw the many blood vials easily, clogged up almost immediately.  They tried finding other veins for an IV without much success and ended up trying out several places painstakingly drawing blood 2 ml at the time.  As a result of this 3 hour long "battle of the veins", my hands, wrists and arms are sore and bruised.

And the best part?  The hospital called me again this afternoon.  Because of the whole messy business, some of the samples were compromised and I need to go back on Wednesday for more bloodworks. :o( Sometimes I wonder why this type of thing always happens to me.

Anyway, I'll have the results when I go back after my holidays.  I have never had any problems besides the thyroid thing, but now I feel a bit anxious.  Hopefully nothing will show up on the test results. Time will tell.

Until tomorrow ...


Overview of my day :

Breakfast : 8 pts (1 apple after the test and I estimated the value of the testing fluid for 75g of glucose)


Dinner : 10 pts (130g steak, 300g cauliflower, 200g potatoes and a white sauce made from 100ml semi skimmed milk and 1 tsb of flour, one petit louis cheese)


Unused : 18 pt

Drinks :   3.5L still water.



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