All my life I’ve had to deal with a less than optimal anatomy. In Kindergarten, my teacher wrote on my report card, “lacks hand-eye coordination.” Not lacking in hand-eye coordination, she definitely wrote LACKS – as if I didn’t have any at all. My vision hasn’t been the best and neither has my hearing for that matter; due to the multiple ear infections I suffered as a toddler. The LACK of hand-eye coordination followed me all throughout school. There were all those skill tests we would have to take every year in gym class… you know, the mile run, flexed arm hang, shuttle run, 50 yard dash, long jump (the long jump was only a clever name for when people like me tried to take that test and could barely get off the ground, much less produce a long jump), etc. The weeks we did those tests were the most dreaded weeks of the year for me. Not only would I look pretty stupid trying to do them, but I would always fail miserably. They actually based your grades for those tests upon your scores and not upon how hard you tried. Mine were always off the scale F’s. Luckily, they weren’t enough to bring my gym grade down too low because I was always a pretty good student and to have that ruined because I LACKED hand-eye coordination, now that just wouldn’t be right.
Now, as an adult, it doesn’t really matter how fast I can run back and forth between 2 lines on the floor while stopping to stoop and touch them. Not that I’ve tried, which only proves how unimportant something like that is… but it seems that all those years of falling physically behind my peers has been made up for me by a “gift” my adult body has bestowed upon me: huge, viable veins! Every time the lab people at the Dr.’s office have to draw my blood, they are extremely impressed by my veins. In fact, I am often the talk of the lab – hey, Karen, come over here, look what I’ve got to work with!
Today I had a student drawing my blood (oh, great, just what I wanted to see, someone about to pierce my skin with a needle who is in training to do so! I realize they have to learn somewhere, but why do they have to learn on me?), and the nurse jokingly told her, wow, you could draw that one in the dark! Haha, hehe, but please, let’s not try that!
Anyway, I don’t mean to brag to anyone who is less endowed in the vein department, but it’s just nice to finally get my due after falling so far behind physically in every other way for so long. And it may seem unimportant to you, but I make a lot of friends at the lab this way, and also, my veinly gifts are very useful in my life. Having had four pregnancies and 2 cases (hopefully only 2; I will find out soon if there will be 3) of gestational diabetes, that means there is lots of blood being drawn from me! I get poked and prodded so often that I’m starting to think that my veins are actually fun for the lab people to draw from… or maybe it was no coincidence that the student lab technician had me as a patient to draw from today – maybe they’ve secretly made me the lab student assignment for the hospital!