Learn Something New Everyday

I took the boys to the hospital yesterday to have some blood work done. The boys have had their blood drawn before and were a little skittish but nothing major. We went to the hospital and filled out a ton of paperwork and then sat and waited. We eventually went back to the lab and Noah hopped into the seat first. Everything was moving along smoothly until the tech pulled out the "11" little bottles to fill with blood. We assured Noah that it would be ok because it was only one poke and the only pain would be getting the poke - not each bottle. I asked him if he wanted to hold my hand and he smiled and batted my hand away - typical boy. The first couple of bottles went fine, but he quickly began to get angry. The tech thought he was passing out but I knew the look - he was quickly flying into a rage - flared nose, red eyes. I asked him, "Are you ok buddy?" and I put my hand on his knee. He jerked his knee away from me and said something very harshly. The tech started hurrying up because he could now see the rage filling Noah's face. I asked, "Noah, is it hurting you? What's wrong?" He used his other hand to point at me and rattle off something angrily in Amharic. In the background Caleb was pacing around like a caged animal repeating over and over, "No daddy, no daddy, no daddy". I had no idea what was going on. The boys had their blood drawn in Addis so it wasn't a new experience for them and we had joked around about them being brave and they had seemed totally fine. Noah began crying and was only getting angrier when the tech finished. Noah stomped off and out the door he went. Josiah was next.

Josiah sat down in the chair and put his head in his hands and began to weep. I said, "Josiah, it's ok buddy, it's just one poke". He jerked his arm away from me and said something in disgust under his breath and would no longer make eye contact. He sat there and let the tech draw his blood. Caleb's apparent anxiety was growing feverish now and I told him sternly to sit down - his anxious movements were obviously causing Josiah even more distress. Josiah finished and I said, "ok Caleb you are next".

He ran out of the room, out of the hospital and hid behind some vehicles. I spent the next 10 minutes trying to coerce him back into the room and it was only through my insistence that he obey that he complied. It took us several more minutes to prep him. The nurse was trying to reason with him and Caleb was growing more and more animated. He was absolutely refusing to have 11 vials of blood drawn, so the nurse took out two larger vials and said "ok, just two". Caleb looked at the two vials and compared them with the 11 smaller vials and said, "No, they are the same - two big and 11 small, the same". I eventually told the nurse that she was just going to have to do it because he would not be reasoned with. A tech held his right side and I gently held his arm and knee. Another tech came in to assist. When the needle entered his arm you would have thought we had stuck his arm into a wood chipper. He screamed louder than any kid I have ever heard in my life and he maintained that scream throughout the entire process. Towards the end he started fighting us and trying to bite us at the same time screaming his head off. The female tech eventually told him, "THAT IS ENOUGH, NOW SIT STILL" - he slowed down in his screaming and stopped trying to bite us but it was still not pretty. Noah and Josiah sat in the background ranting and raving.

This whole episode sent the boys into a tailspin and they wanted to call Michelle and go back to Ethiopia immediately. I was trying to be empathetic as possible, which admittedly I probably did not do a very good job in because I thought they were being extremely foolish. We returned home and the boys were angry with me for the rest of the night.

I remained baffled about the whole experience until bed time. I was putting all the boys in bed when I noticed Caleb holding his left arm like it was limp and trying to move his blankets down at the same time. He asked me to move his blanket down and he told me he couldn't use his arm anymore. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that all the blood had been taken from his arm and he could no longer use it. I looked at him like he was crazy and noticed that Noah and Josiah were watching me. That is when it dawned on me. The boys think that when you have your blood drawn it does not replenish, so when they saw 11 vials leaving their arms they freaked out. I had a hard time trying to communicate how the body replenishes blood - they laughed at me like I was crazy and went to bed.

This morning Caleb was still holding his arm like it was no longer of anymore use. We are pretty sure that Noah told Caleb to stop acting like a baby, so that was encouraging. I am curious to see how they are doing this afternoon when I pick them up from school.