The Life and Times of a Navy Husband

After spending what felt like an eternity holding our son down on the examination table at the Navy clinic’s lab while a nurse searched for a vein beneath the baby fat, I have a new found respect/pity for anyone responsible for sticking babies with needles.

Sean had his one-year well-baby doctor’s visit, and his doc ordered blood tests for iron and lead levels. Sean also needed to get his immunizations, so we thought, ‘Great, we’ll get all the unpleasantness out of the way in one afternoon!’

Not so fast. The immunization clinic was backed up, short-staffed, and their computers crashed while we were waiting to sign in, so we decided to come back the following day, in the morning.

We had the vaccinations done first, and Sean got 4 needles, which he was not happy about. Then we went upstairs to the lab. The corpsman looked at Danielle, who was holding Sean, and said, ‘Please tell me this is for you.’ Danielle said, sorry, no, it’s for the baby. He pulled up the order and said, ‘Oh, no.’ Then he went for ‘reinforcements.’

The blood lead level test the doc ordered, apparently, requires a fair amount of blood, because a finger-prick would not suffice, here. No, the blood had to be drawn from a vein, which meant the nurse (the aforementioned ‘reinforcements,’ who was, the corpsman said, really good at this, usually) had to find a vein. That’s not generally too difficult on a compliant adult, but a one-year-old full of fight is a different story—not to mention that she was trying to find the vein through a quarter-inch of baby fat.

She tried one arm, then the other, then his hand, then his arm again, tying the tourniquet, poking and scratching at the skin, before we finally asked if this was all really necessary. The short answer was no, it’s not really necessary.

Rhode Island state law mandates blood lead level tests for kids nine-months to five-years old before they can be enrolled in day care or school. Sean will most likely not be enrolled in either one for the entire time we live here, so, after the nurse stuck the needle in and missed, we decided to forget the whole business.

What troubles me most about the situation is that I can’t think of a good justification for the test. Sure, sure, lead poisoning is bad. And yes, there are a lot of old houses, here. But I doubt the Rhode Island state government’s motivations were entirely altruistic. At best, this is one of those laws that allows politicians to say, ‘We care about children’s health!’ At worst, it’s a law that shields schools and day care centers from lawsuits.