I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me...

So my schedule has been pretty full of late, and I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to.  I finally have some time to blog tonight, but I'm struggling with it a little.  The reason I am struggling is that I have a bruise the size of an orange on my right arm and my arm is swollen and stiff.  


I'd show you a picture of it, but I don't have a camera right now. (You probably wouldn't want to see a picture anyway--it looks pretty ugly!)  My husband has been out of town for a couple of days and will be gone for a few more.  He took the camera with him, so I don't have one here at the moment. He is on a business trip that is going to segue into an Indians game trip over the weekend.  So this arm of mine is sore, making typing not much fun.  It's not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience.  Perhaps I should explain.


I went after work to donate blood yesterday.  I passed the iron test and the blood pressure test and so forth, and they said I was A-OK to donate.  So I climbed up on the chair they provided, and they cuffed me (no, not handcuffs--a blood pressure cuff!).  The nurse rubbed my arm with iodine so cold that I suspected it just came out of the freezer, and then she told me to make a fist while she started pushing on the inner part of my arm where it bends at the elbow trying to find the vein.  She looked puzzled.


I said, "It's not you.  It's always this way."


She said, "It is?  I thought I was just tired."  I had come at the end of the day, in fact, I was their very last person to arrive to donate.


"They have trouble finding it every time I come here," I told her.


She proceeded and finally chose a spot to stick the needle in.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong spot.  She managed to get the bag started, but the needle was hurting me, and soon the bag stopped filling.  She called another nurse over.  He took a look at things and declared that the scale that the blood bag was sitting on wasn't working right.  


I explained again, that this happens every time I come here, that they have trouble finding the vein.  He repeated that it was just a faulty scale. In spite of his belief that it was the scale, he moved the needle around anyway (once again hurting my arm) and got the flow going again for about a minute.  


A third nurse was called over--this time it was the charge nurse.  She adjusted the needle once again while I finished drinking the Pepsi that had been brought for me (an effort on their part to keep me from passing out, I believe).  My arm was hurting, and I sucked on an ice cube trying to distract myself from the pain.  I leaned my head back on the headrest of the chair and took some slow breaths.  I continued wiggling my feet and opening and closing my hand as directed trying to get the blood to move a little faster.  


Once again, the bag started to fill.  It got to about three quarters full and then stopped.  The charge nurse was called over again.  I wasn't very happy to see her.  She jostled the needle around in my arm again, and unable to stop myself, I said "Ow!" rather loudly.  At this point, the charge nurse decided to abort the mission of drawing my blood.  If the process takes longer than fifteen minutes to fill the bag, the blood is thrown away as unusable.  The time limit had been reached, and it had taken too long.  The bag hadn't filled in the required time and my blood wasn't going to be used.


"No good deed goes unpunished."  That's something my mother used to say. That's what was going through my mind as they bandaged up my arm and taped an ice pack to it.  They showed me to the canteen where I was served an egg sandwich, some chips, cookies, and more Pepsi.


So my attempt to donate blood was unsuccessful and the experience left me with this bruised, swollen, and sore arm.  Sometimes things just don't work out the way you think they should.


I've got some pictures already on my computer that I took a few days ago, early in the week.  I'll share a few with you to end this post on a cheerier note, and save the rest for another time.


I took a different route on my walk the other day.  I got a late start and the sun was already going down.

This  house belongs to one of the very well-to-do families in town.  "Well-to-do."  I always thought that was kind of a weird term.  This house overlooks the edge of the park where I walk.  Nice, don't you think?

They own this field (too big to call a yard, I think) next to the house (mansion?) too.  Quite often there are deer grazing in this area.  I was hoping to see some this evening when I was walking by there, but no such luck.

Walking back into the park, I noticed the silhouette of this branch against the blue sky.  I like the little spiky spheres hanging off the branches.  I don't know what kind of tree this is, but I bet some of my readers will know.

Here are some of the spiky things on the ground.

I like the way they look tucked in amongst the leaves too.

The sun was setting and there was a pink streak across the sky.

An old lullaby floats through my head.  "I see the moon.  The moon sees me..."  Well, the moon is pretty little, but it's there if you look closely.

Good night, friends.  My arm says it has had enough of the computer for one day.  Enjoy your weekend.