June 24, 2007 by SUM.

On Monday, 14th February 2005 I consulted with Dr. H. at James & Minor. Before I saw him I spoke with his assistant G. who agreed with me that it had been strange that the physician at the other clinic had not requested a blood test the first time I consulted with him.

The visit with Dr. H. was quite different than the one I have had with Dr. P. As far as I remember both had been listed under the section for family physicians, but Dr. H. was listed under internal medicine. Dr. P. had barely spent time with me whereas Dr. H. did a physical exam and spent a lot of time asking me questions and entering data in his computer. I was in his examination room for about 45 minutes. I had told him that I had consulted a dermatologist’s office for the injury to my nail, but I had not received the results yet. Dr. H’s examination entailed looking in my mouth, too, and he said that everything looks fine. He prescribed a blood, urine, and stool test. The blood and urine test were done the same day at the clinic’s lab. I had to do the stool test at home.

At the lab a female nurse, A., injected needles in my arms to draw blood. Though I have fine veins, I’ve never had before the problem that a nurse wasn’t able to draw blood from them. But this nurse injected a needle in my left arm and on the top of my right elbow several times, but she always missed the vein. Additionally, she turned the needle around while the needle was under my skin of my upper right elbow. No other nurse has ever done this, and often I had blood drawn from me. While living in Germany I had been a blood donor. At that point I really started to feel very uncomfortable. After this nurse also said to me “There are sideways people don’t know about.” I actually got this uneasy feeling that she had missed my veins on purpose. Afterwards I requested that someone else should draw blood. And she called a male nurse.

The male nurse’s name started with the same letter A. A female nurse, R. assisted him. This nurse held the plastic containers for him. He said to me that he’ll use a smaller needle, and he drew blood from the veins on top of my right hand. While I was sitting in the lab, I noticed that another person stuck his hand through the curtain and placed a urine sample in a box on the wall opposite my chair. I was told that I had to place my urine sample in the same box, too.

On Sunday, 20th February, I noticed a red mark next to the injection from the needle injected several times on top of my right arm. In the middle of the mark was a blister. The diameter of the red mark was about ½ inch. The appearance of the red mark with the blister worried me.

I called a neighbor and told her about my red mark and the blister on it. She told me to report this in case drawing blood from me had been mishandled. After I had spoken to her I called James & Minor, and they paged Dr. H. He called me back on the same day and said that if the red mark would spread over my whole arm I should come the next day in the clinic otherwise it would be a waste of his and my time. After the conversation with him I wasn’t appeased. I had to talk to someone else about this matter. I called another person, and T. said that the physicians/clinics are actually being afraid of being sued, therefore they tell you that there is nothing to worry about.

I certainly didn’t feel better after these conversations. The next day I called my sister in Germany and asked her to ask the dermatologist in Germany what he thinks. She called me back the next day, Tuesday, and said that he had told her that I shouldn’t worry because the blister was not at the injection point of the needle and may have been co-incidental.

After this incident I just was hoping that nothing serious would develop out of this experience. But my confidence in nurses drawing blood from me was at a low point.

At that time I had not developed yet the severe symptoms in my mouth that show up after being exposed to too much radiation. At that time I only felt sometimes a numb feeling and some tingling sensations in my mouth, which I had already described to assistant J. at Dr. G.’s practice.

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June 24, 2007 by SUM.

On the day I came back from my doctor’s visit at Dr. G.’s office, I decided to research for a family physician with emphasis on internal medicine over the Internet on my insurance’s website, First Choice. I wanted to have my blood tested, but I didn’t want to go back to Dr. P.’s practice.

While researching the database from First Choice I noticed something strange. The data list stopped at the letter ‘O’. No data was available for a physician for internal medicine after the letter ‘O’. That didn’t seem right to me. Since I had to find a physician from this list, I decided to visit the clinic of James & Minor in Seattle and scheduled an appointment with Dr. H. for Monday, 14th February 2005.

Sometimes you notice things that seem a bit odd and you just take note of it. Within two days I saw two German built cars, a BMW and a Mercedes that had similar license plates at two different places. The BMW was parked at the Antique Mall were I had a showcase and the Mercedes at the place where I had my mammography done last year in November. On Thursday, 3rd February 2005 I went by the Overlake Breast Center to pick up my x-ray film from last year. Since quite a few strange things had happened to me for some time now, I paid a bit more attention of my surroundings.

On Saturday morning, 5th February, I talked to an elderly man who I had met a couple years ago at a Seattle Sleepless Singles meeting. He told me that he was going to their Saturday meetings. I told him that I’m not interested in going there anymore because I have heard one man saying to me or a woman who was sitting next to me “Now, no men runs after you anymore.” When I had heard him saying this to me or her or us, I was baffled. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know why he was mad at women. I just thought that he is an angry man. Afterwards I didn’t feel like going to the Seattle Sleepless Singles anymore because I didn’t know what this person actually had in mind. And later I wondered what he actually had done.

On Monday, 14th February 2005 I visited for the first time Dr. H. at James & Minor. There I had also a very unusual experience that I found alarming. I’ll write about this and the symptoms of radiation overexposure which developed more severely a little bit later in my next posts.

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