"I'm telling you I have a real problem with needles," the patient in bed one tried to explain.

I'm thinking, 'who doesn't?' My own fear was not of getting stuck, my fear was of having to stick others. The thought of hurting people really bothered me. I guess it was an empathy thing. I was over that now, but I still remembered the first time I had to give a shot. I remember flinching even when practicing on an orange. I didn't realize you had to stick the needle in all the way to the hilt.  

The first time I gave a shot to an actual human. I was so stunned by what I had done that I let go of the syringe and just left it hanging in the poor guy's shoulder. The nurse supervising me could barely suppress her laughter saying, "You don't let go!" It just bobbed there until I could get a hold on it to finish the shot.

I was now working on a ward at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia which is where I was stationed after completing hospital corps training at Great Lakes Naval Hospital where I had learned to stick patients with impunity. I had come a long way since giving that first shot. Ironically, there is nothing like working in a hospital to dull your sense of empathy, at least for the minor pains and fears. The major stuff you see every day working in a hospital puts things in perspective. I actually enjoyed sticking people now and was amused by their fear.

It is five thirty in the morning on the general medicine ward I was assigned to. I've just started my morning rounds to check on patients at the end of my shift before I leave. I also had to get the morning blood work from the patients that required it.

The patient in the first bed had been admitted last night during the evening shift and before I came on at eleven P.M. They hadn't had time to get his blood work, so it was up to me. The hospital did have dedicated phlebotomists, but they were reserved for specialized cases. Because corpsmen have been trained to draw blood even under battlefield conditions, we would do the routine blood work just to stay proficient at it.

"I really do have a phobia," he persisted.

 I tied on a tourniquet, and smiled as I began feeling for a vein in his antecubital space (elbow pit). His veins were great. This was going to be easy.

"You will barely feel it. I'm pretty good at this," I assured him.

"I'm warning you. There is no telling how I will react."

"Just look away," I suggested as I swabbed the area with alcohol and got the needle ready giving the alcohol a few seconds to dry. I was certain I had seen every possible reaction to being stuck. I was wrong.

As soon as I pierced his skin, his arm began to contract. "Don't do that," I scolded him holding his arm down by leaning over on it. I looked up in time to see his eyes start to vibrate and then roll back into his head. I had never seen anything like this and was totally convinced this guy was having some sort of a seizure.

I withdrew the needle, pulled the tourniquet loose and told the patient in the next bed to keep an eye on bed one so I could go get the doctor. I ran to the room at the front of the ward where the "on call" intern slept. Doctor Gobien was probably the best intern I ever got to work with. He had told me the night before that he had had a really long day and to only wake him for emergencies. Needless to say, he was not in the best of moods when I woke him. 

"What is it Farley?" he grumbled. (Of course, he used my real last name, but I'm not giving that out.)

"The patient in bed one is having some sort of seizure!" I insisted.

"Tell me exactly what is happening," he commanded. He still hadn't gotten out of the bed yet.

"I went to draw his blood and his eyes rolled back into his head and he started shaking. He is totally unresponsive. You have to come see!" I was getting angry at the doctor's failure to see the urgency.

"Farley, he has a needle phobia," he said as if that was a sufficient explanation and started to lay back down.

"Yeah, he told me that, but something else is going on. You have to come now!" I demanded.

Reluctantly Gobien got out of the bed and followed me onto the ward. As soon as bed one came into view, there was my patient sitting up in the bed pretty as you please without a care in the world. I turned to explain to Gobien that he was in much worse condition just a few seconds earlier, but by then Gobien was already headed back to his room. Without turning around, he raised his right arm and flipped me the bird, the single finger salute silently warning me not to say another word.

You would think that would have taught me a lesson about listening to patients, but that lesson was to come later. That teacher would be Romalis Brown. I hope he doesn't mind my using his real name. If by some chance he reads this, I would love to hear from him.

Ro very much lived up to my stereotype of African Americans even though I think I remember that he was born in Canada and maybe that had something to do with his personality. He was extremely polite. Please don't think I'm negatively stereotyping Canadians as being overly polite. I watch hockey. I know better. Of course, if there weren't a basic underlying politeness, hockey might be even more of a blood sport. Although I'm not sure how that could be possible. I digress.

Ro was actually raised in the United States. More than his polite manners, I think it was his genuine kindness that impressed me most. He was about two years senior to me in the Navy yet he took me under his wing and showed me the ins and outs of working on a hospital ward.

He taught me how to interact with patients and especially the importance of getting to know as much as you can about them. There was one patient I was trying to draw blood from whose veins were like Rubber bands. Now I was pretty good at drawing blood. I would even go in on my time off and do it for corpsmen who were less skilled. But after two failed attempts on this guy I was ready to get help. The patient suggested I try the vein in his ankle. I had never done that before so I ignored him. I went and found Ro and asked him to try to get the admission blood samples from this guy and I went on to another patient. I saw Ro about five minutes later and asked him if he had had any luck.

"First try," he smirked.

"How did you get into his veins? They were like hard Rubber," I asked astonished that he had gotten the samples so easily.

"I got it from the vein in his ankle," Ro explained.

"That guy tried to tell me. I just didn't think he could know what he was talking about." I shook my head still puzzled.

"Joe, the reason his veins were so hard was due to scarring. He's an addict. He knows his own veins better than anyone. He knew which veins could still be poked into."

Talking to and learning about your patients was just one of the many things Ro taught me.

Ro also taught me an interesting trick with the ward intercom. Just to tease your interest, I'll mention that it almost got me killed.

The ward we worked on was basically a very long room with fifteen beds on each side, an aisle down the middle and a nursing station at the front. Curtains could be pulled around a bed if privacy was required, but it was an all-male ward so the curtains were usually not closed, and the ward was essentially a long open dormitory.

There were intercoms above each bed that connected to the master intercom at the nursing station so the nursing station could talk to any individual bed without walking down to it or hollering down the ward. The controller for the intercom was a panel with two rows of lights each light corresponding to one of the beds on the ward. When the light for a given bed was lit, that was the bed you could talk to over the intercom. You pressed the button, and the light would move from one bed to the next enabling that bed's speaker. Holding down the button, the light would proceed back and forth across the aisle and down the ward until you got to the bed you wanted.

Ro showed me that by making a "tch, tch, tch" sound with your tongue and holding down the intercom button, the sound would move from bed to bed back and forth across the aisle and down the ward to the end. It would sound just like a bat flying down the ward. Cool, yes, but I had to improve on it and that is what got me in trouble.

I liked to work the night shift which meant I got to wake all the patients in the morning. One morning I thought I'd wake everyone using Ro's trick, but instead of making the sound of a bat flying, I whistled like the sound of an incoming artillery shell. When the light reached the last bed, I concluded with the rumbling sound of a mock explosion.

I got my desired effect of waking everyone. I was, however, a little surprised when all the ambulatory patients came up to the nursing station laughing.

When I asked what was so funny, they explained. The last bed on the ward had been filled with a new patient yesterday before I came on shift. He was a Navy Seal. He was just back from Vietnam. When I sent my wakeup call down the ward, he had ducked for cover under his bed. That is what had prompted all the laughter. He was now headed this way to have a little "discussion" with me. They all suggested I start running.

Actually, the Seal was a really cool guy, but he did request that I not do that again. Assuredly, I never did.

Romalis and I got to be good friends. I really looked up to him and wanted to impress him. Being the overcompensating liberal that I was back then, I once tried to impress Ro by telling him how much I admired Malcom X. I still remember his response. "Don't be stupid," he told me. "I assure you Malcom X does not like you." Ro then explained to me the evils of racism regardless of whether the racist was black or white. Of all the lessons Ro taught me that one had the most impact.