Struggling to Maintain Consciousness After a Blood Draw

It started as a typical blood draw for a physical with a medical assistant I still believe is more than competent and great at her job. We only had three vials to fill, but apparently I didn’t have that much blood to spare.

She found a nice vein on my left arm, but it rolled on her. She suggested I come back next week, I said I couldn’t come back and offered my other arm. I’d rarely had a vein roll on me, I’m usually pretty easy to prick, but I most likely hadn’t drank enough water and I’d been fasting for around 17 hours.

She found another vein, on my right arm, but noted afterwards that it was in the crease of my elbow and that could have caused what happened next. I watched as she did her blood draws chatting casually about how I may still eventually go back to college to be a phlebotomist. She had me undo the tourniquet as she filled her last vial and put the gauze pad to my arm.

As we were finishing and I recognized it was about time to stand up, I knew I couldn’t, and said I was about to pass out. Stars had become the vast majority of my vision and at times the nurses faces had become mostly obscured by yellow and white stars, thousands of them.

I reminded myself, from my recent freediver class, to use the hook breath to help raise my blood pressure, but I couldn’t even do that.

One of the nurses asked me to talk to them and put an ice pack behind my neck. I started saying things like hello, I’m still here…