Do Nurses Enjoy Needlework?

As I sit here and stare at the bruise from the needle I had yesterday to extract some of my blood for tests, I wonder if nurses and other medical professionals enjoy doing needlework in their spare time. Needlework being the arts & crafts type of activity where you sew thread into a piece of fabric or other substance to relax and make pretty designs.

I remember a while ago having to listen to one nurse talk about needles. She was a diabetic who had to give herself injections and they obviously unnerved her. She described invisible barriers; people who couldn't give themselves injections because they didn't leave the needle in the skin long enough; and other expressions of mental horrors at the thought of injections. Does she ever do needlework to relax in her spare time?

The lab worker nurse I had removing blood from my arm yesterday was not in a good mood. She had just had an argument about the types of shipping containers she was supposed to use with the man who picked up the containers. At this point I was worried. I had already taken a number, waited for the other lab worker to go over my lab work requisition, and been told to sit down again and wait to be called. It was too late to escape. If I had just come a bit later I could have done the “Oh, look at the time, I must run” gesture and legged it. But I was committed to getting an angry woman to stick me with a needle.

It's not easy to find blood in my arm, I keep it well hidden, so there is no way to really feel it, you just have to stick the needle in where you expect there to be a vein and hope. And then dig around with the needle to find blood. Been there, done that oh, so many times. So I was trying to be encouraging by nodding when she thought she might have something because that is where I can remember it usually being. She wasn't impressed. Oh good, make her angrier, that's a smart move.

She did finally stick the needle in and found a vein with only a limited amount of digging, but I still have a bruise. I have had people, confident and happy people, who have just stuck the needle in, got blood out, and finished up. There are just not enough confident, happy people in the world.

So does that nurse lab worker do needlework in her spare time to relax? If she does, what types of patterns does she do? I don't remember ever seeing a shark needlework pattern, or an abstract design with reds and blacks all over, that's what I think of when I think of her doing needlework. And the other nurse, the one who was the diabetic, she should do needlework to take her mind off sticking needles into flesh, but I doubt that she does.

I recommend needlework to help you relax, but I don't know if a nurse could do it without getting stressed out. That's the opposite of what should happen, but I don't think they could avoid it. This seems to be an occupational hazard.