And a typical medical-test vial contains 10 ml, whereas a pint = 450 ml. So yeah, I can totally believe they took 20 vials of blood; that's less than half the amount of a typical donation.
It's concerning that your doctors think they need so many samples to test. But I suppose in the long run it's a good thing, if they really want to be thorough about diagnosing and addressing whatever has been troubling you.
There apparently are standardized
suites of blood tests where a number of
vials with color-coded caps are filled and then put into different analyzer devices (so, say, the blue vial goes to determining the oxygenization percentage, the green the iron content, yet another provides the standard chemical analysis, yadda yadda). Which I've seen to contain six, eight, maybe ten vials.
Twenty sounds ... thorough.
Still short of a donation unit, of course, but then again, you go to
donation when you feel
healthy but have a
blood test done when ... not quite so.
When we have snow in France, it's a few centimeters, and when I have a few centimeters I'm really happy to simply walk and hear this special sound. So yes, give me some snow, it's 35°C and near to the sea with flamingos () but who cares ? ^^
Any chance that you forgot that France extends a ways into the Alps as well, with ski resorts like Isola 2000?
Pro tip: Don't just trust your snow
shodtired German car to get you back from the French Riviera in winter. When there's a cm or so of snow
there, the police actually
shuts down les autoroutes to prevent accidents. Which forces everyone who
insists on going to use la Route Napoléon or other départementales which they
cannot cordon off and offer
such nice vistas ... especially straight down ... but I digress.