MY TWILIGHT EXPERIENCE

Healthcare providers that practice good medicine order blood tests. I happen to see one of those practitioners and was thus sent to the vampires. And I’m not talking about Edward and Alice.


Lab results take about a week to get to your physician. I waited until exactly one week before my follow-up appointment to do the blood draw. See, I don’t do well with needles. (Me too, you say—who actually does well with needles?) But when I say that I don’t do well, I mean that I cry. Like a toddler.

I behave like the adult I sort of am on the drive to the lab.

I behave like the adult I sort of am when I decide that I’m not going to ask for the kiddie butterfly needle—I’ll go with the adult-sized one.

I behave like the adult I sort of am while signing in at LabCorps and perusing Family Circle in the waiting room.

I behave like the adult I sort of am when walking to the back with the vampire.

I behave like the adult I sort of am until I see the chair I’m asked to sit in.

Then I cry. I try to hide it. The blood sucker sees right through my act. I’m not very good at this, I tell her. And in a flash of self-effacing honesty I add, I cry. (Like she cannot already hear it in my voice.) Do you have kids, the vampire asks as she wraps the latex tourniquet around my right arm. No, I whimper. Oh, I just thought that if you did, you’d have to be tough about things like needles. (Who says things like this to a 25-year-old with tears trickling down her cheeks?) What do you do when you have to go to the hospital? I-I-I’m healthy; I don’t have to go to the hospital often . . .

I do not remember the rest of the conversation that I believe I held while staring at the wall to my left.

It hurts. Not just a small pinch. A big pinch. I think of how stupid Bella Swan is to want to go through the change to be a vampire herself. It. Will. Hurt. Stupid. Four vials later, the vampire in the white lab coat is done. I mutter something cordial yet catatonic, grab my jacket, and stumble from the clinic to my sedan.

However, if ever you are Sparks and have to have your blood drawn, I recommend the vampire, Desiree. She barely leaves a mark.