Needle, Damage Done

The fun: ya know, it just don’t stop.

On Wednesday I had to do the glucose screening. I was dreading it because I heard the drink is gawdawful. Well, it was, but it wasn’t thick and pink or anything. The worst things about it were the burning of my throat/esophagus as I drank and the fact that I had to down it in 5 minutes while someone watched. Then an hour later they drew blood to see how I tolerated it. I got the call today that my result was 142. Below 140 is passing. I’m a big failure who eats really healthily and is not overweight but apparently may have gestational diabetes.

I will go in early Monday morning, having fasted for 12 hours. They’ll do a fasting blood draw. Then I’ll drink again, but this time it’ll be double the glucose in the solution. Then, continuing to neither eat or drink, I will be tested (with more blood draws) every hour for the next 3 hours. My main concerns: throwing up the drink (’cause I’d have to drink another), going crazy without water or food (I am constantly drinking these days and eat at least every two hours to feel relatively decent), and failing it.

I have one other thing to say in this post, and it’s about those people. People I’ve mentioned in other posts — the ones who say stupid things. After I drank the glucose drink yesterday, the nurse midwife said she (and the CDC) highly recommend all pregnant women get a flu shot. I’d never had one since I don’t get too sick in the winters. She added that if I got the flu while pregnant, I could die. So that pretty much sealed the deal for me. Plus she said their shots had no preservatives. But then… I asked the nurse who came in to give me the shot if many pregnant women decline it. She said that some do. That was a sufficient answer. But she went on to say that she never gets a flu shot anymore because the two winters she did she had the worst cases of the flu. She said this while prepping my arm and the needle. At this point I’m thinking: Wow! If I don’t get the shot, I’ll get the flu and die, and if I do get the shot, I’ll get the flu and die! Then I think: Why do people suck so bad? Why did the midwife have to say “death” (adding, “not that I’m trying to scare you into getting the shot”)? Why did the nurse have to tell me her horror stories as she’s injecting the stuff in my arm?