Abstinent

When it comes to medical procedures, I'm not the bravest
person. Went for my perodic blood work this morning. The instructions
were not the clearest: 12 hours abstinent for one thing, no water after
midnight for the other. And there is a two hour wait at the clinic.

Ended up having blood taken at 9:30 AM, abstinent of food and drink for 13 hours
from a bowl of Rice Krispies and milk at 8:00 PM Sunday night.
Not hungry at the time, but thirsty.

I also peed in a glass out of turn, and waited in a corridor for the
blood room with my specimen in  tube in hand. I was the only person
(out of maybe 100) to negotiate the maze with that outcome.

Last time I went through this, I fainted on my way out. Not really fainted,
but was dizzy enough to lie down on the solitary bench outside. An elderly
man asked how I was doing; he wanted to share the bench, which we did.
This time, I had a toffee candy with me.  I was dizzy leaving the building, but
the candy rush pulled me out of it. I crossed the six-laner New York style in front
of the clinic like a boss, and even managed a drink of water from a park during
the walk home.

I actually looked at the blood that was being taken this time. It was a really
dark color - in effect, purple - and I worried it might be too thick. Turns out
venous blood - blood on the way back to the heart - is actually a lot daker than
that in the arteries, because it has lost its oxygen content.

I also read up on blood-letting, the practice of removing blood from an ill
person; did they use to remove a lot? I remember reading that Louis XIV was
right tortured by this practice in his dying days (although the blood-letting
surgeon was a figure of fun for Molière). Yes they did, up to half a person's
blood supply. The practice was stopped in France by Philippi Pinel at the
height of the French Revolution.

Pinel was in charge of an insane asylum, and he had the shackles removed from
the inmates, arguing they were moral persons capable of being understood.
He is considered one of the greats of medecine today and the Philippe-Pinel prison
in Montreal houses the criminlly insane. Word among prisonners is that Pinel is  good
place to avoid.