I went to get labs done last Friday at my usual place. Since they still require appointments in the morning, the wait was pretty short. Typically, all the phlebotomists at the lab site are women, but this time it was a guy names Luis.
Luis had problems with his first attempt. He missed the typical vein location at the left side of my arm. After digging around a bit, I told him to stop because it became very painful. It was obvious he missed since there was no bleeding when he pulled out the needle. Luis then tried the right side and managed to get a different vein. It still hurt, but at least blood was flowing. He needed to draw eight tubes so it took awhile.
After the blood draw, my arm looked normal. However, after about twelve hours, a small bruise started forming. This grew over the next few days until it looked like the photo above. It is not painful but super ugly to look at.
Life with chronic diseases 