Phlebotomy

At six am on November 19, 1987, I was at Bellevue Hospital for my morning job as a Phlebotomist. My friends, Chris and Karen, helped me get the job a couple of months before and I was still getting used to the 6am-8am shift. But it paid $10/hr and as a pre-nursing student, it was good money. And I loved the work.

I was assigned to 12 East that morning, a floor I had not worked on before. And I admit, I was distracted, as I had an Anatomy and Physiology test that morning at 8 am, so I needed to finish on time. I was halfway through my blood list when I came to an isolation room. This was in the days before The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had sharps containers and boxes of gloves in every room.

I had a small sharps box on my tray of supplies, which I left on the floor outside the isolation room, taking in only the items I needed to draw the man’s blood.

The man was a young old man, in that he was weak and thin and frail. But he wasn’t even 30 yet. He didn’t respond to my questions, but his bracelet matched my orders so I got started and got the blood I needed without difficulty. 

I always disconnected the last vacutainer tube before withdrawing the needle as I felt it was less likely to leave a bruise that way, so the hub of the needle was full of his blood as I stabbed my index finger trying to recap the needle.

I didn’t want to walk through the doorway with the needle exposed in case I might stick someone. I had never in my on the job training been told not to recap. Crazy! I took off my glove and stared at my finger.

“Crap, I hope he doesn’t have Hepatitis” is what immediately ran through my head.

I went to the nurses’ station, found his chart and read “PCP” and couldn’t figure out why Angel dust was a medical diagnosis, and “Toxoplasmosis” wondering how this poor man got the disease pregnant women get from cats, when the nurse asked me what I was doing.

“I got stuck with his needle and am trying to find out if he has…”

By the time I got to that part of my sentence the nurse had dragged me to the closest sink, turned on the hot water and was pumping my finger, saying, “Honey, didn’t anyone tell you this is the AIDS floor?”

Holy sweet mother of God…. AIDS?!?!?

I have no memory of going back to our workroom or who said what to whom to put the wheels in motion. I could hardly catch my breath for the terror I felt.

My friend Chris walked me to my Anatomy lab and I explained I needed to go to NYU for testing and a Hep B vaccination (I had only has two of the three in the series) and as I said the words I heard the shake in my voice as tears welled in my eyes. My instructor told me to do the things I needed to do, that she would reschedule the test for me.

Chris walked me to NYU and waited while the testing schedule was explained to me- today, six weeks, three months, six months and one year. It was 1987 so that was all they could do. This was early in the epidemic and I was absolutely terrified. 

I was lucky. I did not sero-convert. I will never know if I just didn’t get a big enough dose from the blood in the hub, or if the amazing nurse who pumped my finger saved my life but I was spared. And AIDS became real to me in a way it wasn’t before.

The patient died two weeks after my finger stick. God rest his soul.