Diana's Diary

2003-07-16 - 6:05 p.m.

Splurt

I donated blood today.

I am going to be talking about this blood donation in detail, so if you're squeamish, you should probaby stop reading now.

Ow.

I was going to donate blood on July 1st when everyone else from work was going, but then I got too busy, what with a two-and-a-half-hour conference call (gah!), shipping everything for the next week's meeting, and our recruitment campaign.

Anyway, on July 2nd, the nice people at the Red Cross called me up while I was at work and asked me why the hell I hadn't shown up with the rest of my co-workers. The nice Red Cross lady then refused to let me off the phone until I made another appointment.

I was half-tempted to skip my appointment this afternoon to see if someone would show up at my house with a needle and a blood bag and take it by force. (No one else I know has the Red Cross pursuing them so actively. Liana's joke was that if I'm ever in a car accident, someone from the Red Cross will show up to catch my blood in a bucket or something.)

So, because I'm a good girl, I dutifully showed up right on time for my appointment.

They couldn't find a vein.

They can never find a vein. I always walk away after donating blood with enourmous bruises.

This time, the tech screwed around with my left arm for about 15 minutes before giving up (the bruise is at three-fourths of an inch in diameter and spreading) and trying my right arm.

She didn't like the looks of the vein in the center of my arm, so she went to one on the side. She said that they don't normally like to use the side veins because they tend to go a lot slower or stop up. Prehaps because of this, the tech put the cuff on my arm very tight. When she went to stick me with the needle, blood splurted out all over the place before she could even get the needle in all of the way. Gross. I mean, I'm not particularly squeamish about my own blood, but there is something off-putting about seeing it all over like that, especially when you know that it all came out of one tiny little pinprick hole.

You know, I always feel bad for the people who are waiting to donate blood and have to watch them try and get it out of me first. They never seem to have this much trouble with anyone else.

Surprisingly, I don't seem to have a bruise on my right arm yet. My left arm is killing me, however, because the tech kept wiggling the needle around inside my arm before she finally gave up. (Apparently the needle got caught on some tissue, and plugged the needle, which is why she wasn't getting anything. I was afraid to ask what "tissue" the needle might have gotten caught on.)

Finally, the finished draining me, and so now I'm off the hook for the next 7 weeks. I think I'm eligible to donate again right before September 11th, and since we'll probably do another company-wide trip to the blood bank then, I can go with everyone else. (It's really boring to sit in a blood donation center without anyone to talk to.)

-Diana

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2003-12-16 - Ow! My Nose!
2003-12-15 - 'Tis the Season...For Moving
2003-11-17 - Rush, Rush
2003-11-03 - Apartment Hunting Sucks
2003-10-22 - Apparently, "nauseated" is a good look for me.

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