Phlebotomists are artists, IMHO. I had one experience with a young 20-something who was apparently new; after three attempts she was in tears, telling me, “I am so sorry I’m hurting you!” (My wife tells me I do NOT have a stoic face, so I was not helping things.) An older (40?) woman appeared, tapped my right inside elbow, tapped my left, picked up the needle (I began admiring the paint job on the wall in the opposite direction), made a light probe on my right vein, there was a pause… and she said, “There you go!”, put a bandage on my arm and left. Huh? The “light probe” was the needle going in. Damn! The poor kid who had tried before kept apologizing; I gave her a smile, told her that I was fine, and fortunately never ran into her again.

Glad the world got a great engineer and executive, Toni, but a skilled phlebotomist is no small thing! 💚