Published: August 29, 2008 01:04 pm         

The secret to feeling younger

I went to see my phlebotomist the other day. Phlebotomists are the brave men and women who stick needles in your arm and take your blood. (Wait a second, we’re the brave men and women for just sitting there and letting them do it.)  

It is a tough profession. Imagine having a job where everyone hates you for what you are about to do, and your first instruction to them is “make a fist.”

My phlebotomist, Shirley, uses the same joke every time I see her. She looks at me with flirty eyes and says, “It’s too bad you’re married. You’re my type.”

I laughed at this for about 11 of our sessions together, but now I have my own joke. When she tells me what a tough day she’s had, I tell her to just go with the flow. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. Probably ’til my LDL goes down.

I try not to talk to people in the adjoining cubicles. You never know if there’s someone there with a serious illness. I overheard a patient say his doctor told him he has obliterating arteriosclerosis and hypercholesterolemia. When we walked out together, I gave the guy a big hug and told him to hang in there and be brave. Then I went home and Googled what he said. We have the same thing.

And by the way — how long are you supposed to keep that silly cotton ball and bandage on your arm after you leave the doctor’s office? I rip it off the second I walk out the door. My wife, who only gets a blood test once a year, just tells the phlebotomist to take off the old bandage and stick her in the same place. She thinks if you remove the bandage, you jeopardize your health insurance coverage. This is the same woman who waits 20,000 miles to get her first oil change.

Shirley says there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who watch when the needle goes in and those who don’t. I asked her what kind of person would stare at the needle, and she said they are usually up-tight, aging baby boomers who lead dull, uneventful lives and are control freaks. Ever since she mentioned that, just as she sticks me, I tell her what lovely eyes she has or how interesting the clinic ceiling is.

It makes me nervous when they take my vial of blood and then label it by simply writing my name on it with a magic marker. I’m not sure what else they could do, but with that very same identification system at sleep-away camp 50 years ago, I still ended up wearing Allen Guggenheim’s underwear three days a week.  

Shirley never sees my actual cholesterol numbers, but she gets a big kick out of the fact that I have to come back so she can stick it to me every three months. Sometimes she sneaks in a little medical advice of her own. Last week, she told me that Cheerios was good for raising my HDL. Or was it that Wheaties would help lower my LDL? Needless to say, she doesn’t think much of Count Chocula.

When I left, Shirley had to do a final check of my personal information, so she took out a chart and pointed to various pieces of data with that same magic marker.

“Is that still your address, Mr. Wolfsie?”  

“Yes.”

“Is that still your phone number?”

“Sure is.”

“And is that still your birth date, March 5, 1947?”

“Well, I’d love to change that to l957.”

Incredibly, she took the magic marker and scribbled something on the page.

I walked out of the office on cloud nine. My cholesterol may still be sky high, but I feel 10 years younger.

Dick Wolfsie is a television news reporter, syndicated humor columnist and author. He can be reached at Wolfsie@aol.com