Thursday, December 20, 2001
GIVING BLOOD, GETTING A BRUISE
Very few people know this, but I am very excited and fully support the giving of blood. This is especially true for myself because I have O+ type blood, making me a universal donor. That, plus the fact that I just about make it over the 110 lb. weight limit should make me a prime candidate to donate pretty often, right? Well, in truth, I haven't donated at UCLA since 1994. And when I walked in there this week to donate, they all let me know about it, jokingly of course.
Hey, nice to see you once a decade.
1994? I was in high school back then!!!
I didn't mind the friendly jokes at my expense. What I discovered is that I'm a big baby when it comes to pain. Don't let the big exterior fool you. Even the pinprick they give beforehand stung. Fine, call me a wus, but I'll tell you, needles are no friends of mine. And what's worse is that I have veins that do are not close to the surface, giving me the label: "a hard stick." After poking me, the nurse had to fumble around within my arm to find the vein (Read: NOT very comfortable AT ALL!) and then, she had to hold the needle in because she didn't get a good connection between it and my vein. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, I had only donated about 100 ccs of blood (roughly 25% the total needed to be good enough to give a patient) when I should have been done with 400 cs deposited. She decided to terminate the donation because she said my arm was going to bruise up pretty bad if she kept going - not to mention she would have had to hold that needle for half an hour longer.
I felt dejected and rejected. My own body had failed me and prevented me from doing something good for society.
The good part (or maybe bad depending on how you look at it) was that I still got a free T-shirt, still get 4 hours of pay banked, and still got all the juice and Diddy Reese cookies I wanted. And all I left with was a big bruise on my left arm.
Not a bad trade-off ... but I still wish some patient could have been feeling better today because of blood I had donated.
Very few people know this, but I am very excited and fully support the giving of blood. This is especially true for myself because I have O+ type blood, making me a universal donor. That, plus the fact that I just about make it over the 110 lb. weight limit should make me a prime candidate to donate pretty often, right? Well, in truth, I haven't donated at UCLA since 1994. And when I walked in there this week to donate, they all let me know about it, jokingly of course.
Hey, nice to see you once a decade.
1994? I was in high school back then!!!
I didn't mind the friendly jokes at my expense. What I discovered is that I'm a big baby when it comes to pain. Don't let the big exterior fool you. Even the pinprick they give beforehand stung. Fine, call me a wus, but I'll tell you, needles are no friends of mine. And what's worse is that I have veins that do are not close to the surface, giving me the label: "a hard stick." After poking me, the nurse had to fumble around within my arm to find the vein (Read: NOT very comfortable AT ALL!) and then, she had to hold the needle in because she didn't get a good connection between it and my vein. After sitting there for about 10 minutes, I had only donated about 100 ccs of blood (roughly 25% the total needed to be good enough to give a patient) when I should have been done with 400 cs deposited. She decided to terminate the donation because she said my arm was going to bruise up pretty bad if she kept going - not to mention she would have had to hold that needle for half an hour longer.
I felt dejected and rejected. My own body had failed me and prevented me from doing something good for society.
The good part (or maybe bad depending on how you look at it) was that I still got a free T-shirt, still get 4 hours of pay banked, and still got all the juice and Diddy Reese cookies I wanted. And all I left with was a big bruise on my left arm.
Not a bad trade-off ... but I still wish some patient could have been feeling better today because of blood I had donated.
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