A tale of two blood draws

I've had a lot of blood draws done over the years. When my thyroid went, for a while there I felt like a pin cushion. I was having draws about three times a week -- sometimes more. Some are good, some not so good. Anyway, neither of these hurt during the draw but I thought this was a funny contrast. To be fair, with my cheezy camera and my inability to raise my arm, the first one looks worse than it does in real life and the second one doesn't come close to how awful it looks. But the story is little amusing.

This first one was done at the lab. She was very nice and I didn't even feel a pinch. I was surprised to see any bruising the next day.


This second was done at the hospital by a nurse who expressed horror at the tiny bruise at the first site. She was also the one in charge of teaching the student EMT guy who did my IV placement and she gave him a hard time. This is what her draw looked like the next day.



Meanwile, the best one was the IV guy. That wasn't worth photographing because you can't see where it was and that's the biggest needle.