Blood work
During a pediatrician visit in August last year, I was given a pathology form to request two blood tests on the Lego lover. One was for chromosome karyotyping and the other was one for fragile X. These are standard tests now done when a child is diagnosed with autism in this state whereas it wasn’t when LL was diagnosed four years ago. It’s unlikely fragile X is anything of concern so it will rule it out. The chromosome thing might reveal something or it might not.
Knowing that the Lego Lover would be anxious and worried about having a blood test, I put it off, until it was nearly time to return for another review visit. By then it was too late since it takes about a month for results. I promised to get it out of the way this time. The pediatrician didn’t even ask about it so it’s obviously nothing of any urgency.
I decided to get it over and done with today and took Lego Lover to the pathology clinic today. He was reasonably calm when we arrived. The pathologist (P1) was a young and gentle woman who I liked really well and I think LL was as comfortable as he might be in that situation. I didn’t mention anything about the autism at this point because I didn’t think it was necessary. It was going fine until a second pathologist (P2) came to “help”. P2 was an older woman with a strong accent and expectations of cooperation, and to put it really simply, she was not gentle at all. Lego lover was agitated almost immediately by P2’s presence. She proceeded to grab hold of his arm and then I guess she was trying to sooth him even though he was pulling away.
P1 started the blood draw, which was painful for LL. It took a while to get the blood flowing then it was okay for the first two tubes. It slowed down on the third tube so they were trying all the usual tricks to get more blood. Lego Lover was getting more and more upset through this. Somewhere in the middle of this, P2 really got going on the typical “be a big strong boy and it will all be over soon” sort of spiel. This is when I pointed out that he has autism and he doesn’t handle this type of stress well. I don’t think this really made any difference. By this point the personality of P2 had dominated so that P1 seemed a minor player in this little scenario. The vein collapsed and the needle was removed. The third tube was very short of the required blood. P1 wondered if it would be enough but P2 said it definitely needed more blood.
She wanted to go to the other arm for blood. Lego Lover staunchly refused, pulled his arm from the sleeve and put it inside his shirt to protect his arm from further assault. I didn’t quite know how to go from this point so tried hard to persuade him to allow a second needle. Nothing I said could induce him to cooperate. P2 started spouting off the horror story of what would have to be done if he didn’t cooperate. I tried to stop her going on had to talk over her to get her to stop. P1 finally spoke up and said, rather quietly, that what was being described was correct. I pointed out this talk wasn’t necessary unless it was truly going to be done and was only upsetting him more. I also said that it was a terrible thing to try to frighten a child into submission like that.
I continued to attempt persuasion unsuccessfully while P2 carried on in her own way but without more stories…Meanwhile, P1 phoned up the lab and found out they could possibly take the sample as is and see what could be done. It took a bit of talking but Lego Lover was reassured he was done for the day and he finally returned his arm to the sleeve. We were free. If that last tube has to be redrawn, I will see our gp and ask for the cream to numb the arm beforehand (and in the future).
I honestly don’t think P1 would have used those sorts of tactics and because she is younger felt stuck in the middle and didn’t want to offend P2 who is probably also her senior.
Anyway, another trauma has been survived.
