Donating Blood
Jan. 16th, 2006 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I donated blood. It looks like the hurricane donations have dried up and, at least in my town, they can use more.
I never wanted to donate blood. And for a while, I never had to. First I wasn't old enough. Then I didn't weigh enough. Then I gained fifteen pounds in one summer (some of it was even muscle!). And then a friend asked me to donate with her to lend her moral support.
So I first donated in college. There were many little old ladies volunteering to keep people company while they were donating. Mine was very cute. I remember she said she wished she could donate, but she only weighs eighty pounds. Another guy's was offering to walk him to the snack area. He said he'd rather go alone. Being a football-player-looking guy, he was afraid that if he fainted, he would just squash her.
The little old ladies went on and on about how great we were and how we were saving up to four lives.
So ever since then, I've had good feelings about donating blood.
Of course sometimes they don't make you feel special, but more like you're being rounded up. And sometimes they're gentler with the needles than others. Once a lady accused me, "You don't eat right, do you?" She was gleeful when she got to tell me I was being rejected because my hematocrit (related to iron levels) was too low.
I once gave blood, then found out I weighed only 103 pounds--the minimum allowed is 110 pounds. Oops. Oddly, my arm actually felt less tingly than it had the first few times. With the blessings of a zoology professor who teaches a course on the human body, I continued donating when I was underweight. I learned to wear my red overalls so I don't look too skinny.
(I don't actually fit in those anymore, but that means I don't need them.)
Once I saw that they had a scale. I thought to myself, hey, water weighs eight pounds per gallon. I'll drink lots of water so I pass the weight test. This plan worked except for the part about how badly I had to use the bathroom. Forget the sauntering over to the cookies--I was racing to the bathroom!
I've failed the hematocrit test more than once and now make sure to eat red meat the day before. I forgot this time, and instead ate a milk-free breakfast with an iron pill this morning. (Calcium and iron seem to cancel each other out. So do calcium and chocolate-cancer-fighting agents--arg.) Then this afternoon my blood tester actually complimented me on having so much iron. But then she said it was 40 and the minimum was 38--doesn't sound so smashing to me.
I also was rejected for a year for having had surgery once.
I can't remember if I was rejected for having been in the vicinity of dairy cows in Gruyere, Switzerland, one afternoon.
I narrowly escape being rejected for having had sex with someone who had been in sub-Saharan Africa since 1977. (He said he left when he was 12, and he's about my age, which means he left in 1975 give or take a year. Whew.)
They don't make it easy. It's quite a grilling they give you. Not to mention the two jabbings (one to get the blood out, one to test the hematocrit and maybe some other stuff).
But then you always get a treat. Normally I get juice for the drink, but today the place was cold, so I was happy to see that they had hot chocolate. Mmm. They also had a variety of cookies and crackers, every single one of which had hydrogenated vegetable oils in them. I guess these are donated, and they can't be picky. One of them was Nutter Butter peanut butter cookies, which I love (though I never buy them), so I indulged. Even though they also had raisins, which did not have any vegetable oils of any kind.
And this time I learned a few things. They pull out several (four today) vials of blood for various tests, and the blood really shoots into those things. Turns out that's because there's a vacuum in them. And they're now testing for West Nile virus in addition to all the other things, although the test is still experimental, and if you test positive they might ask you to come in for follow-up tests to help them with the study (but you don't have to).
They also asked why I came in, to help them figure out how to get people to come in. They were hoping I'd say I'd gotten a call or seen an ad or something. I had to tell them "I had a day off work." But then I also got to say that I saw the graphic on the state of their blood supply on their home page, but the receptionist said that the web page is not kept up to date very well. This surprised me, because this morning it said they were short (not green) on everything, although one blood type was in the yellow graphic. But this afternoon, one was in the green and two were in the yellow. Mine was still in the red zone. I thought the blood center might be crowded when I went in, but it wasn't.
I never wanted to donate blood. And for a while, I never had to. First I wasn't old enough. Then I didn't weigh enough. Then I gained fifteen pounds in one summer (some of it was even muscle!). And then a friend asked me to donate with her to lend her moral support.
So I first donated in college. There were many little old ladies volunteering to keep people company while they were donating. Mine was very cute. I remember she said she wished she could donate, but she only weighs eighty pounds. Another guy's was offering to walk him to the snack area. He said he'd rather go alone. Being a football-player-looking guy, he was afraid that if he fainted, he would just squash her.
The little old ladies went on and on about how great we were and how we were saving up to four lives.
So ever since then, I've had good feelings about donating blood.
Of course sometimes they don't make you feel special, but more like you're being rounded up. And sometimes they're gentler with the needles than others. Once a lady accused me, "You don't eat right, do you?" She was gleeful when she got to tell me I was being rejected because my hematocrit (related to iron levels) was too low.
I once gave blood, then found out I weighed only 103 pounds--the minimum allowed is 110 pounds. Oops. Oddly, my arm actually felt less tingly than it had the first few times. With the blessings of a zoology professor who teaches a course on the human body, I continued donating when I was underweight. I learned to wear my red overalls so I don't look too skinny.
(I don't actually fit in those anymore, but that means I don't need them.)
Once I saw that they had a scale. I thought to myself, hey, water weighs eight pounds per gallon. I'll drink lots of water so I pass the weight test. This plan worked except for the part about how badly I had to use the bathroom. Forget the sauntering over to the cookies--I was racing to the bathroom!
I've failed the hematocrit test more than once and now make sure to eat red meat the day before. I forgot this time, and instead ate a milk-free breakfast with an iron pill this morning. (Calcium and iron seem to cancel each other out. So do calcium and chocolate-cancer-fighting agents--arg.) Then this afternoon my blood tester actually complimented me on having so much iron. But then she said it was 40 and the minimum was 38--doesn't sound so smashing to me.
I also was rejected for a year for having had surgery once.
I can't remember if I was rejected for having been in the vicinity of dairy cows in Gruyere, Switzerland, one afternoon.
I narrowly escape being rejected for having had sex with someone who had been in sub-Saharan Africa since 1977. (He said he left when he was 12, and he's about my age, which means he left in 1975 give or take a year. Whew.)
They don't make it easy. It's quite a grilling they give you. Not to mention the two jabbings (one to get the blood out, one to test the hematocrit and maybe some other stuff).
But then you always get a treat. Normally I get juice for the drink, but today the place was cold, so I was happy to see that they had hot chocolate. Mmm. They also had a variety of cookies and crackers, every single one of which had hydrogenated vegetable oils in them. I guess these are donated, and they can't be picky. One of them was Nutter Butter peanut butter cookies, which I love (though I never buy them), so I indulged. Even though they also had raisins, which did not have any vegetable oils of any kind.
And this time I learned a few things. They pull out several (four today) vials of blood for various tests, and the blood really shoots into those things. Turns out that's because there's a vacuum in them. And they're now testing for West Nile virus in addition to all the other things, although the test is still experimental, and if you test positive they might ask you to come in for follow-up tests to help them with the study (but you don't have to).
They also asked why I came in, to help them figure out how to get people to come in. They were hoping I'd say I'd gotten a call or seen an ad or something. I had to tell them "I had a day off work." But then I also got to say that I saw the graphic on the state of their blood supply on their home page, but the receptionist said that the web page is not kept up to date very well. This surprised me, because this morning it said they were short (not green) on everything, although one blood type was in the yellow graphic. But this afternoon, one was in the green and two were in the yellow. Mine was still in the red zone. I thought the blood center might be crowded when I went in, but it wasn't.