“Thanks for doing this, Lakshmi,” I said, trying not to wince or let my voice crack as I saw my bloo
“Thanks for doing this, Lakshmi,” I said, trying not to wince or let my voice crack as I saw my blood flowing up into the first of what would be several vials, “I’ve never been good at doing this to myself…”“Oh, no problem, Dr. J…” she replied patiently, as she crouched by my side, behind my desk, holding her syringe in place, readying the next vial. Lakshmi was, before all the changes here at the office, my newest medical assistant. But now, now that most of the rest of the staff was new hires with woefully little in the way of experience, she was like a seasoned vet and - our only trained phlebotomist, at this point - certainly the only one who’d I trust to do this. “I’m…I’m not very good with needles,” I continued, averting my eyes as she switched to the next glass tube. It’s true; I never had a problem giving shots, drawing blood on others, on patients, but when it came to me, myself…ugh. I just always hated it. I’ve just always been squeamish that way. Maybe it’s just the idea, being, haha…penetrated. “No, no, it’s okay,” she said calmly, confidently, taking good care to watch, to draw my blood carefully and gave no sign that she noticed me trembling. Lakshmi had always been a quiet, diligent worker, a great MA, reserved and if anything a bit shy. She came from a conservative family but had a little fun streak, I’d heard, that would come out after a cocktail or two. Even at the office she’d maybe seemed to begin to blossom when the new girls came on, which was nice to see. She was pretty. Wait did I just say that? I…I would have never, before, really described Lakshmi as “pretty”, but as she looked up at me with big eyes of molten chocolate, flecked with gold and green, I was struck by, yes, how pretty she looked today. She also smelled nice, her deep dark hair looked thick and soft. So, uh, yeah. Head in the game, J. Admittedly, I’d been a mess ever since letting my guard down too far while away with Melissa last week, and then Sheryl kicking me out for my improprieties put me in a tailspin. Everything seemed to be spiraling out of control, like others had taken the yoke of my life and were either determined to see me crash or just plain old didn’t know how to fly. But today, waking up in the crummy little apartment upstairs from the office that - for now - I called home, I recommitted myself to be a better man, a better husband (we’re just separated, right? there’s still a chance?) and a better boss. I would not notice or fixate on things like Lakshmi’s bright white smile or how nicely her scrubs seemed to fit around the hips. Or, when I saw Melissa quickly in passing earlier, how much taller and more voluptuous she looked today in the red striped dress than the last time she wore it, soon after she’d started with us two months ago. When I greeted her in the hall earlier she’d given me a funny smile, like something was up. A couple pleasantries and she just went about her business, leaving me to retreat here to my office to wrestle the image of that shelf of a bosom and those deeply tanned legs out of my head and try to get back to brass tacks. Anyway, I was determined, now, to be less passive. And one way I figured I could start taking back the reins was getting to the bottom of this…thing. Why did I seem smaller, shorter now than I know I’d been in the past? Being a doctor, a geriatrician in fact, I realized some bone loss and loss of height can be normal in the aging process. But I was not old! And, if I’m remembering what I’d been in the past correctly, I’d lost four inches, at least. I stood at just barely 5’7” when I measured myself in a furtive aside while on rounds at the hospital this morning, away from prying eyes. If this was an ongoing process, I needed to get to the bottom of it. I needed some answers. I’d do a bone density scan on myself here at the office as soon as I had a minute alone, and this bloodwork was another good step. “Almost done?” I asked, glancing back at what I think was the third filling vial of blood bubbling up out of my vein. “Almost done,” Lakshmi assured me, smiling pleasantly and fixing me again with those big, pretty eyes, “you have a lot of tests on these orders. We need four vials.” “Okay,” I managed, starting to feel a bit queasy. The list of orders for the bloodwork I wanted was long; besides just standard stuff there was a lot I wanted to rule out so I was looking for a bunch of markers. If Lakshmi was at all curious as to why I needed my own bloodwork done, and so much of it, she hadn’t said a word so far. I figured she’d think I was just doing some routine screening. “You’ll get this to Quest for me?” Quest was the lab I usually used for bloods. “Of course,” she said, eyes twinkling up at me as she swapped in the final vial, which began to fill with my blood, “anything you need…”============Thanks to @carouselbegins for help on the original image. -- source link