Squeamish is not an option

I used to really hate blood. That was before I joined the Marine Corps. I hated thinking about it, seeing it, and avoided dealing with it. But facing it comes with my job description.

Today in our Combat Life Saver class we were taught how to stick an IV into a person. Among many things done right, I did something not so wrong but could be miscontrued. Our class was split into pairs. My boy, LCPL Houser and I were the first to go, and I was the first to be sticked. He chose the biggest needle, a 14 gage, or however you spell it. It looks like one of those syringes that you use to inject butter and juices into turkey. It was pretty big. Houser seem a little nervous and I was a little tense. The prospect of having an inexperienced person poke me with a big needle into my vein doesn't really enthrall me.

He got the needle in and I took it like a man. It didn't hurt at all. He did it correctly. What he and most of us forgot that when you take the needle out, you have to put a lot of pressure on the hand or else blood would bleed out. Needless to say, he did not apply much pressure and before you know it, I had a steady stream of blood flowing down my forearm. It was good stuff.

When it was my turn to stick him, I did everything correctly except I went through his vein. I asked the doc if I should continue and he nodded his head and said yes. So reluctantly, I jammed that needle in and on Houser's face a frown appeared with a wincing sound. But again, he took it like a man. Apparently, I went through his vein and into his arm. So when I pulled the needle out, blood was coming out everywhere because I didn't apply enough pressure to stop it. It was intense.

There were only two 14 size needles and we both exhausted them.

Blood doesn't really affect me that much anymore. I've been trained to accept the fact that what I do requires being able to handle blood. And I'm happy for that.