No Bloodletting Today
All week I've been excited about today's blood drive at the Albany Community Center. I signed up to donate right away. I figured it was a good way to reach out and help people without actually having to, you know, *touch* them. "You can save three lives today" is one of the Red Cross' new advertising angles. I was looking forward to saving three people.
In college I tried to donate blood a few times, but my iron was always too low. It was incredibly disappointing to me, so I started eating meat (I was a vegetarain at the time) and tried again, but my blood was still not up to snuff. So I stopped trying.
That was ten years ago. My diet is much improved, plus I take iron supplements. So this morning I got up and had three pieces of toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam (mmm! a favorite breakfast!) and did some administrative work at home before walking over to the community center.
You have to read all of this literature before starting--stuff about sex and needles and blood transfusions and active duty overseas and perscription medications. They need to take as many percautions as necessary, which I understand, because I'd be livid if I got a bum blood transfusion.
This friendly hippy-ish doctor checked me in. He took my temperature and blood pressure and drew a tiny blood sample. I looked over to the area where the donors were stretched out in these whacky inverted lounge chairs, their right arms laid out with needles and tubes coming from them. I couldn't wait to ghet in one of those chairs and let my mind go. I find many medical procedures alternately relaxing and fascinating (were I to have health issues, I'm sure I'd not feel that way). Examinations and stuff are kind of fun, because it's all about you, but you really don't have to do anything except not faint. It's kind of like going to a spa.
My Mom used to donate blood a lot. She had a special pin that said "1 Gallon Club", which means that she donated one gallon in the long run, not all at once. But she said they'd give her a rose and she'd get the afternoon off work when it was all over. Well! Roses and time off...I didn't see any roses at the community center, but they did have a spread of cereal bars and raisins and cookies. Mom said all she'd get was orange juice.
Everything was going fine until the nice hippy looked at my blood sample. "Unfortunetly..." he said. I thought he was going to follow that up with something mild like "...we have to ask you a lot of personal questions about your sex life, it's just procedure." Maybe some people freak out and expect to hear "Unfortunetly, you're a junkie slut with AIDS and we can't take your blood."
But what he said was "Unfortunetly, your red blood cell count is just a little low. It's normal, especially for prementruating women, but we need it to be at least 38. Yours is 36. So please sign this form, and don't be discouraged from trying to donate again, and help yourself to the raisins and cereal bars."
Drat! My easy escape for do-gooding was suddenly gone, lost. Now I'll have to actually do something to make the day productive. Well, I tried, and if trying is half the battle, then I saved 1.5 lives today without even losing an ounce of blood! Not too shabby.
In college I tried to donate blood a few times, but my iron was always too low. It was incredibly disappointing to me, so I started eating meat (I was a vegetarain at the time) and tried again, but my blood was still not up to snuff. So I stopped trying.
That was ten years ago. My diet is much improved, plus I take iron supplements. So this morning I got up and had three pieces of toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam (mmm! a favorite breakfast!) and did some administrative work at home before walking over to the community center.
You have to read all of this literature before starting--stuff about sex and needles and blood transfusions and active duty overseas and perscription medications. They need to take as many percautions as necessary, which I understand, because I'd be livid if I got a bum blood transfusion.
This friendly hippy-ish doctor checked me in. He took my temperature and blood pressure and drew a tiny blood sample. I looked over to the area where the donors were stretched out in these whacky inverted lounge chairs, their right arms laid out with needles and tubes coming from them. I couldn't wait to ghet in one of those chairs and let my mind go. I find many medical procedures alternately relaxing and fascinating (were I to have health issues, I'm sure I'd not feel that way). Examinations and stuff are kind of fun, because it's all about you, but you really don't have to do anything except not faint. It's kind of like going to a spa.
My Mom used to donate blood a lot. She had a special pin that said "1 Gallon Club", which means that she donated one gallon in the long run, not all at once. But she said they'd give her a rose and she'd get the afternoon off work when it was all over. Well! Roses and time off...I didn't see any roses at the community center, but they did have a spread of cereal bars and raisins and cookies. Mom said all she'd get was orange juice.
Everything was going fine until the nice hippy looked at my blood sample. "Unfortunetly..." he said. I thought he was going to follow that up with something mild like "...we have to ask you a lot of personal questions about your sex life, it's just procedure." Maybe some people freak out and expect to hear "Unfortunetly, you're a junkie slut with AIDS and we can't take your blood."
But what he said was "Unfortunetly, your red blood cell count is just a little low. It's normal, especially for prementruating women, but we need it to be at least 38. Yours is 36. So please sign this form, and don't be discouraged from trying to donate again, and help yourself to the raisins and cereal bars."
Drat! My easy escape for do-gooding was suddenly gone, lost. Now I'll have to actually do something to make the day productive. Well, I tried, and if trying is half the battle, then I saved 1.5 lives today without even losing an ounce of blood! Not too shabby.
posted by Lefty at 12:22 PM
1 Comments:
Oh, at least you tried. I should go in place of you. I think my blood will be okay.
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