I'm so sorry for your experience today. I understand being a "hard stick" and have had to have so many that I have just let the tears run while they continued to stick and stick.
I have had a couple of wonderful people give me some advice and IT WORKS for me and is amazing! First...at one hospital...they give me a very tiny dose of lidocaine with a tiny needle just before they try to insert the big one for the procedure. It somehow plumps up the area and gives me almost complete pain relief while they insert the line. It's WONDERFUL if you can find someone willing to do it. They simply inject the drop of lidocaine under the skin amost directly over the site they plan to use. I think it helps them too because they have gotten me every time when they have used this procedure...otherwise...well that's a story closer to yours.
Second, there is a new ultrasound guided needle insertion procedure at one of our hospitals. Very few of the nurses are certified to use the equipment...so they don't tell you about it, but it's a standard ultrasound with the ability for the nurse to see exactly where and how deep the veins run. I have had that a couple of times (and never had it charted because the nurses were not "certified"). I didn't care about the certification because it can't be too hard to use an untrasound machine and they got mine after four other people had tried too many times to mention.
Lastly...try to get someone from pediatrics...preferably NICU to do the insertion, if possible. They are some of the best I have ever seen. They still don't always get it, but they have a better success rate than the others.
Again, I'm so sorry about the extra pain you had to endure just to get the IV started. It makes my blood boil to see these anti-pain med advocates talking their heads off about how us CP patients just can't handle "normal" pain.....let them go in and be stuck so many times in a row without pain meds and see how much complaining they do then. (Sorry about the soap box, but I always get some creep saying how they just couldn't imagine how I just lay there and let them stick me over and over.....that would be too much pain for them and yet we do it, over and over, while staying as still as possible and using other concentration techniques so that we can have greater painful procedures to follow, with the HOPE that relief will follow some time soon).
Rest well tonight my friend.