irishgirl, I wish I had been a lab tech in Ireland. The lab techs here do almost all of the blood draws, and I hated drawing blood. I was good at it, mind you, (like you say, it isn’t rocket surgery), but I hated it.
Hah! Lab techs…if only. I do my own bloods, my own cannulas, my own ECGS, male catheters, ABGs…you name it, I’ll be the sucker doing it. Nurses occasionally do bloods, ECGS or cannulas, but only as a special favour, and only if they’ve taken the appropriate course.
I have a blood taking spiel, it lets me know well before I get anywhere near the person with a needle if I’m going to have to deal with a panicker. In which case I offer local anaesthetic and if really necessary, a tranquiliser (only had to use it once).
“Hi, may I take some blood? Anywhere special you want me to go? Okey dokey, I’ll just set up if you want to look away…nice weather…oh look, all done! Do you want a plaster?”
I actually wouldn’t mind if the nurse went in, slapped a tourniquet on, couldn’t find a vein and then told me they didn’t want to take the blood, it’s flatly refusing to do something without even seeing how hard it is first that annoys me.
Caffeine addiction is a bitch, and for someone who drinks a lot of coffee, cutting down to one or two drinks a day is a big deal. I drank 6-10 shots of espresso every day, plus a couple cups of tea or a soda sometimes, until I landed in the ER, where I was told that caffeine was going to kill me if I didn’t make some big changes. Then I saw a cardiologist who told me that I have to cut coffee out of my life forever; he said he was once at a similar level of caffeine consumption and ended up having to quit like me. He kicked the habit of drinking coffee but can’t quit the drug itself–he still drinks soda.
This is a cardiologist, by the way. Not exactly the kind of guy who’s ignorant about the effects of caffeine addiction.
As for me, I still need at least one cup of tea every day, two or more if I’m working that day. (4 cups of tea ~= 1 cup of coffee, caffeine-wise). I don’t know how much coffee cowgirl used to drink, but that’s not the point. The point is that everyone deals with addiction in their own way. How much coffee per day is “acceptable” is between her and her physician, and it’s not black and white (no pun intended): if she used to drink two pots of coffee a day, then she’s a hell of a lot safer at her current level. If she’s not in danger at 1-2 cups a day, then there’s no reason she needs to cut back further. And either way it’s not your business or your place to shit all over other peoples’ recovery efforts.
FTR, when I say that “caffeine addiction is a bitch”, understand that this isn’t about two yuppies whining about fake yuppie problems: I’ve kicked cocaine, heroin, meth and smoking before with no problem, not even withdrawals, but quitting coffee was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’m not saying the drug itself is more powerful than all those others, but coffee is so ingrained in American and Canadian culture that it’s a damn struggle to get away from it.
On the contrary, IMO it’s perfectly acceptable for a pharmacy clerk to discuss my acne treatment options when I’m there to buy acne stuff. OTOH, if I’m there for some other reason, it’s fucking rude to blather on and on about how terrible my acne looks and how I really need to consider treatment. That’s no more appropriate coming from a pharmacist that I don’t even know than it is coming from a random stranger on the street.
As for our esteemed patron in the men’s bathroom yesterday: despite how you were apparently raised, our floor and our urinal serve two very different purposes. I don’t know if you tried to walk on the urinal, but I do know that what you did on the floor was not its intended use. There isn’t even a fucking drain! What the fuck were you even thinking?
Torani sells Blood Orange, Mandarin Orange and Sugar-Free Orange flavoring syrups (you may have to get these online or at a restaurant wholesaler), and McCormick sells an orange extract:
You can buy it straight from the horse’s kitchen by going here and searching for “orange extract”.
If push really comes to shove, you might be able to get what you need by boiling an orange peel or slice in water or oil; the water/oil should come out orange-flavored. I’ve never done it, and I can’t guarantee it’ll work, but there are tobacco flavoring sprays on the market that are made this way, I’m pretty sure.
Thanks for the link - they don’t say if they ship international, though.
I know where I can get some orange essence, it’s actually an oil used for chocolate making but I figure it’d work the same in a cheesecake. I was just peeved because the cheesecake was a spur of the moment thing, they had every other essence and flavouring under the sun and I couldn’t get the orange.
Also, I boiled orange juice and peel down into a syrup, but it didn’t really add too much flavour. My cheesecake is “mostly chocolate with an imaginary hint of orange”. But it’s still tasty 
Now a new rant!
Phone, you’re a year old. Why the hell are you randomly turning yourself off when the battery is at full power, and refusing to re-power until I remove and replace the battery a couple of times? (The internets tell me this is a common problem with the RAZRs. Ogdamnit)
Then you probably really don’t want to hear that lab techs do the blood draws and ECGs here, and the respiratory techs do the ABGs (and the lab runs the tests, of course). The only way the doctor got involved in the blood draws was if the patient was completely uncooperative, in which case we were legally obligated to leave them alone and get the doctor to talk them into it, or completely deficient in proper blood-taking veins (like some older diabetics). The latter was very uncommon - lab techs here are the blood-taking specialists, and if we can’t get it, chances are no one can from the usual places. Hey, we need doctors badly in Calgary - are you sure I can’t entice you further?
Doing a little research on that, I came across a great name for laboratory technologists - clinical laboratory scientists. Much better than lab nurse (completely inaccurate) or vampire (just mean).
I just came in here to scream and whine:
My incision itches soooooooooooooooooooooooo much. Can I scratch it? Please please please can I scratch it?
Whoever decided that healing should itch like this is a freakin’l sadist!