third time's a charm...or not

in attempt to be responsible adults steve and i decided that we needed to invest in term life insurance. in order for us to be approved we had to go through extensive questioning and most recently a physical, wherein a nurse came out and verified our blood pressure, height, weight (unfortunately!), and lastly draw blood. since i've donated blood ever since high school...the good old days when my sole reason for donating was to get out class...i knew that i wouldn't have a problem, however, my 6'3", 220# spouse was a completely different story, understatement of the year so far! i prefaced his blood draw by explaining to the nurse that steve isn't the most comfortable with needles. sidenote, i did the talking because steve had already begun the process of shutting down which entailed becoming a mute. the nurse insisted that he would be fine sitting at the dining room table as she took his blood. try #1: she couldn't find a vein in his right arm, but tried a smaller vein which eventually collapsed and not a drop of blood was drawn. okay, not the best scenario for steve. so we all said some prayers for steve, including the nurse...this was getting serious as the sweat was beginning to glisten on his brow. try #2: on top of his right hand. she had a much easier time finding a vein but there was no blood flowing. she blamed it on his nerves and after about 2 minutes of trying steve started sweating through his shirt and said he was going to pass out...that's all i needed to hear to decide that he needed a break from all this sticking. a cool washcloth and a glass of water later the nurse heeded my advice and let steve lie down on the couch for the third, and final, try. try #3: the top of his left hand. there weren't any veins in his left arm that she thought would be useful so his hand would be the last attempt. laying down significantly helped the outward displays of stress. he was talking, his eyes were open, and he wasn't sweating...a perfect situation for drawing steve's blood, right? wrong. the nurse needed to fill 2 vials, and maybe filled a 1/4 of one after several minutes. she went ahead and sent off what she was able to draw and said that steve will most likely need to go through this again. yikes! when that day comes i'll most likely suggest, again, that he be flat on his back with espn on in the background and hopefully he'll be able to get through this, what i thought to be routine process, quickly and with no tears or fainting. i have to laugh and add steve's final words as i tried to proofread this out loud to him, "i live this stuff i don't need to read about this crap".