A Bloody Fiasco

Today I donated blood. I have donated blood before. It has gone smoothly.

Today was not like that.

I went to the Red Cross station at my assigned time to get my donation on, and dutifully went through all the rigamarole of checking in and giving my sexual/travel/medical history and whatnot. In the process, it is "possible" that I "may" have slightly duped the people into accepting my semi-malarial blood due to omission of details concerning several sketchy places to which I have recently traveled... (KIDDING!!! Even I am not evil enough to trick the Red Cross into accepting tainted blood... sort of.) But I pass the screening and am moved to the donation unit.

I get settled into my chair, and do my level best to remain reasonably calm during the run-up to getting jabbed in the arm. I can't decide if it's better to watch the needle go in, or to avoid looking at my arm at all costs, so I wind up doing both, twisting my head back and forth in a nervous manner while the volunteer sticks in the needle. My veins, I am told, are really small, so in order to find a serviceable one, the nurse had to apply an amount of pressure that would cripple Hercules (or that was my impression, in any case).

She stuck in the needle, and about 10 seconds later, my hand went completely numb. I informed the nurse to this fact, and she was able to reduce the pressure marginally so that the numbness became only a tingle. About thirty seconds after what we shall call "Adjustment #1" I start feeling really dizzy and weak. As someone who has fainted on more than one occasion before, I can recognize the run-up and, once again, alert the nurse. She came to adjust the pressure machine once again, flipped my chair back to a reclining position, and told her assistant to run and get my a Coke to drink for the sugar. As someone not used to being fussed over, I tried to keep a really nonchalant attitude and save a little face. This fell apart rather shortly afterwards, as you shall soon see.

So I finally get settled in my chair, and keep obediently squeezing the little rubber ball that is supposed to keep your blood moving. I relax for the next five minutes, and watch my blood fill the little bag. I thought for a while about what a generous, community-minded individual I am to go through this hassle and become fairly content, basking in my own goodwill... that is, until the nurse happens to notice that the bag isn't filling up anymore as I had imagined it was. It's actually not filling up at all.

The solution? She has to up the pressure yet again to try to make my puny little vein bleed, and, as expected, my arm goes numb. This begins a process of "increase pressure-make Krystyna's arm go numb-reduce pressure-make Krystyna's arm stop bleeding" which repeats about four or five times, each one because I am (politely and meekly) complaining.

At this point, I start getting worried that I'm not going to be able to fill the whole bag and that after all this torture, they're going to throw it away anyway. (This did not ultimately happen, thankfully, as it would have left disastrous psychological consequences and hindered me from persuing further selfless activities for fear of waste and ultimate uselessness.) Somehow, through what can only be described as a miracle, we hit a pressure equilibrium, I stay relatively un-numb, and manage to complete the pint.

The needle comes out, I wait my requisite five minutes before moving, go to the snack table, and eat about two cookies until a wave of intense dizziness hits me. The woman next to me notices my pallor and clear disorientation and flags over a different aide, who has to escort me back to the chair, where they tilt me back to a prone position, cover me with a blanket, and force me to drink water. As if I haven't already caused enough of a scene by commanding the attention of a good third of the Red Cross staff, someone notices that I look flush and then covers my face and neck with cool, wet paper towels. Keep in mind that this is in full view of about, oh, twenty or so people, many of them attorneys who work at my firm. Great.

All I could do was swallow my pride and lie there like the weakling they exposed me to be until I was ultimately given permission to move back to my old friend, the snack table. Ten long minutes later, they pronounced me to be fit to return to normal society, and I sheepishly scamper out of the room, grab a huge lunch, and hole up in my office.

My new theory is that they impose this two-month limit between donations not because that's how long it would take you to regenerate enough red blood cells, but so that you will forget about all the trauma that the effing process actually entails, and by the time the waiting period is up, will have re-convinced yourself that donating blood is a good and charitable idea and go eagerly forward to do it again.

In any case, today was truly a lesson in humility.