#278 Give Blood
I don’t have an unusual fear of needles. I certainly don’t like them. I don’t wake up some mornings and think, “Hey, today would be a good day to be stuck with a needle!”
When I was a kid, I had terrible allergies. The doctor did a test to see what I was allergic to. They gave my parents a BOOK of things to avoid. In addition to never going outside and only drinking water and eating sand, I got allergy shots every week by a really hot nurse (as hot as a nurse can be to a kid). Maybe that prevented me from getting an irrational fear of needles.
Yet I still get nervous whenever a needle is involved. Even more so when that needle is going into my vein. While I’ve had my fair share of injections, I’ve only had my blood drawn a handful of times. The difference for me is an injection is short and it goes into your muscle. Blood drawing requires the needle to go into a vein for a prolonged period of time. Before the needle goes in, I get scared it’ll go straight through the vein. Once it’s in, I worry that someone will trip and fall into me and the needle, tearing my vein open.
Despite all those things, when I saw that my company was having a blood drive, I immediately signed up. It would obviously be a scary thing for me to do but more importantly, my blood could save someone’s life. And then that person would have to be my slave in the afterlife where they would rub my feet and feed me grapes. It’s true. It says so in the Red Cross flier they hand out.
Ok, maybe it didn’t. But the pamphlet did tell you how to prepare before giving blood. This included hydrating yourself and eating iron rich foods. I realized that I was going to lose 10% of my blood volume. That’s kind of trippy if you think about it. I thought the scary thing would be the needle but this seemed a lot worse.
So in preparation, I started eating red meat at least once a day. I’m normally mostly vegetarian, even completely vegan some days, so this was a big change for me. All I can say is, oh red meat, how I’ve missed your evil ways. There are worse things than forcing yourself to eat a delicious medium-rare steak every day. My cholesterol for the week might be off the charts, but I was going to have enough iron in me to donate 10 pints of blood!
Today, I walked to the building in the lot where the Red Cross has their mobile blood donation center. Everything was set up in a big room. On the right was a sign-in table and a snack area. In the middle were 8 different blood donation tables. To the left was a waiting area and private rooms. After signing in, I got called into a private room where they pricked my finger to make sure my blood had enough iron. I also had to answer some confidential questions on a laptop. Questions like: are you a heroin addict? Have you had sex with prostitutes? Have you lived outside the US for more than 5 years in these various countries? Answering no to these questions, I realized what a boring person I am.
Then it was my time on the table. I lied down and the blood tech prepared my arm. They slipped a tourniquet on then I felt the cool sensation of iodine in the crook of my elbow. At one point, I thought they already put the needle in, but I wasn’t watching. I was getting pretty nervous when suddenly I felt a quick pinch. The needle was in.
I felt a dull kind of pain after that. The tech secured the needle, then hooked up the bag to start. They gave me a little foam thing to squeeze every five seconds. After a few minutes, the tech called another over. “It’s coming out so slow,” she said. What? MY blood? I thought. That’s impossible, my veins are always bulging. Blood should be shooting out of my body!
The tech adjust the bag then started maneuvering the needle IN MY VEIN. It didn’t hurt much. It felt kind of sore. But thinking about what she was doing made me really uncomfortable. I tried to focus on deep breathing until she stopped. Then everything seemed to be fine.
I wondered if I would feel light headed, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel much as I laid there on the table, blood seeping from my body. In 5 minutes or so, it was done. They pulled out the needle and patched me up:
They told me to lay on the table for 5 minutes since it was my first time donating. After 5 minutes had passed, I stood up and that’s when I felt it. A bit light-headed and tired. But it wasn’t an exercise tired, it was more like a flu tired. It wasn’t too severe, but I felt it.
At the snack station, they had a wide variety of goodies to choose from. I opted for Cheez-Its and water. When I got back to work, I started chugging massive quantities of water. I wanted to get back to normal as soon as possible.
I’m happy that I donated blood. It wasn’t too scary. It’s definitely something everybody should do. Maybe even be required to do, like jury duty. But then if we were required to, the Red Cross wouldn’t give out movie and comedy club tickets for our blood.
