Shades of red

Red is my favourite colour.  I like to wear red clothes and have red nails and when I can be bothered to put it on, I love red lipstick. There are red pillows on our couch and there was even a brief moment when I considered having my bridesmaids where red dresses for my wedding. Luckily, my very wedding-wise friend Nancy pointed out the potential pit falls of this idea.  Reds, she had said, can be notoriously difficult to match, and as my bridesmaids were geographically scattered and picking out their own dresses, there was no way for them to compare purchases and get dresses in the same colour family.  She told me that I didn't want it to look like a red-orange sunset had thrown up on my girlfriends, so the red dress idea died a quick death and all the girls were told to go forth and purchase black dresses. 

So I am sitting here now and pondering the colour red and soon realise that I actually have a love-hate relationship with red. Red may be a great colour to wear and accessorize with, but it is also the colour of blood and tracking (inflammation of vein), two things that are on my mind a lot at the moment.

Lets flashback to yesterday afternoon. I have gone back to the hospital to have my line replaced. The staff have all been warned that I, Patient Crap Veins, am coming.  Immediately I am shown to a bed and quickly have several nurses examining my veins and frowning when they see the bruise on my arm from the long line gone wrong. I tell them that it is much worse than it looks and then wish that it did actually hurt (read yesterday's post to understand why). Nurse I Like The Big Obvious Vein is going to try to put the line in. He keeps eyeing the big, obvious vein that runs down the inside of my arm. I tell him that this vein is a bit of a tease, it looks good but doesn't really put out. It's the one everyone went for in the past and so has been abused over the years. He is determined to try it and I tell him he can as long as he doesn't try to start it in the crook of my arm, because the vein is particularly hard and scarred there from years of use.

He sticks me above the bad area and it doesn't seem like it's going to work because no blood is flashing back, but he continues to route around and then a little it of blood appears. The line goes in but won't advance after a few inches. A valve is in the way. Valves are one of the banes of my life and have sabotaged many a long line. So there I am, watching people try to stick a tube in my arm and making suggestions for getting past the valve. I also mentally note the lack of blood. Then it hits me how strange my life is.  Normal people don't spend a lot of time contemplating their vein valves. And normal people don't wish they were bleeding MORE. To me,  more blood equals more suffering and is a sign that they have hit a really good vein, and so chances are better for the long line lasting. But I am not normal, so I do, in fact, think of and about valves and bleeding. Really I should be a phlebotomist, then  I would get paid for having to think about such things. Or maybe I should be a vampire, which I don't think is a paying gig, but at least my knowledge of good and bad bleeding wouldn't seem so out of place.

Now flash forward to right now.  I am sitting here and looking at my arm and fretting a bit. The gauze covering the hole where the line goes in is soaked with blood and there is tracking on my arm. It concerns me that the bloody gauze is just sitting there festering. And the tracking isn't making me feel better either. It seems to be taunting me. Yesterday afternoon it was just a pinky dot, now it is a red line that is definitely following the path of the vein. Tracking is a sign of irritation, infection, or a failing line and has to be watched. So I watch it. I can report that it keeps getting redder and bigger, despite me giving it the evil eye.

So do I like red? Well, I guess it's all relative. Depends what's red. Depends on the shade.