First Blood Draw

Turns out Janie is still anemic.  At her 12-month visit, her doc recommended adding more red meat and eggs to her diet.  We even gave her chicken liver these past 3 months and it didn’t make any changes to her Hb level of 9.6.  So, Dr. Kaplan ordered a full blood panel to rule out thalassemia, which is a blood disorder.  So, we went to a lab at CPMC to get it done since we were in the neighborhood.  Here she is waiting for her turn.  Poor baby was happy as a clam and totally clueless of what was about to occur.

Once it was her turn, the phlebolomist Mila sat us down and instructed Mommy how to hold her.  Here’s a sequence of photos that Daddy took.

“Hm.  What’s going on?”

“Uh, I don’t think I like this.”

“Wah!!!!”

By the way, Mila was just looking for a vein at this point.

Here comes the alcohol swab.

She was not going to hold still and put up a good fight.  In the end, Mommy held her body and left arm and Daddy had to step in to hold her right arm down with both hands.  She screamed the whole time and Mila took 4 vials of blood!!!  Poor baby.