IV Anxiety

What follows is an excerpt of an email to my dear friend Sara Jane. I hope you'll all forgive me for ranting. We mutually pissed each other off yesterday. Don't recall if I've mentioned that pretty much all of my veins are destroyed from my previous chemo. Pulling blood, and even more so, setting an IV has become a huge challenge and an enormous source of anxiety for me. An absolute angel in pre-op got it started Thursday. My heart sunk yesterday when I saw it had blown. Surgeon wanted another put in. They were giving me minimal fluids but the pain meds were administered by IV. I have also developed intolerance to most oral pain meds - excruciating pain in my diaphragm area followed by violent vomiting. Not so fun. Anyway, I was promised that someone most especially skilled in this art would come replace the IV. When she arrived I explained my anxiety and she assured me she "was awesome" then proceeded to JAM the needle through my vein, into my muscle and when that didn't work she kept moving it and jabbing around the general area of my now growing new hematoma. Well, that pissed me off so I ordered her out of my room and forbid her to enter it again. Some muckiety muck came in and said they were sending up someone with an imaging device to put it in. Two hours later they come back and tell me, sorry - that department is closed so no go. Awhile later a gal from ER comes in, examines my veins, turns and runs for her life. By now I am PISSED and in pain. I start to create a stink, insisting on filing a formal complaint. By now everyone has decided that maybe we should just skip the IV :) but they had to call the Dr. four times before they were able to figure out a pain med that I could tolerate. I'm hurting pretty bad by then and I hate the world. Finally got the pain med down me and I also submit to taking an Ativan (sedative/anti-anxiety drug in case you don't know) Oh yeah, and poor Brad is home with nasty food poisoning and we have a girl (late term pregnant) who is worrying us so maybe you should just come and kill us both. Seriously, if you are really my friend you would do this for me. :)