The new nurse smiled brightly at me and started jabbering in a pleasantly singsong Welsh accent about the weather and my hair and her shoes and the computer and the other nurse and the [I had tuned out at this point - I hadn't had breakfast and was starting to get cranky]. "So" she trilled "that'll be 5 of the orange ones, two pink, one clear and a yellow one too, I suppose" and then she looked at me for confirmation. "Great!" I beamed, not a fucking notion what she was prattling on about. It was only after she'd stuck me with the needle that I noticed the mountain of vials she had stacked at my elbow, each one with a colour coded cap. I sat there trying to look brave and trying even harder not to puke on her, horrified by the sight of the needle in my arm. "You've very deep veins!" she exclaimed, more by way of a compliment than anything else, I think. "We'll just give it a little wiggle, I know there's one here somewhere..."
