Life of Wry

And by hard, I mean uncomfortable and time consuming. Uncomfortable because you recline in a chair for nearly two solid hours, largely immobilized because your arm’s tethered to a machine and a collection bag, and a needle’s been threaded deep into your vein.

Essentially, they’re drawing blood out, separating and processing the platelets, then putting the platelet-less blood back in. A very weird sensation runs through your body every time your blood reenters the bloodstream from which it was just removed. Your lips tingle and…. it’s hard to explain what it feels like to be wide awake and have blood get pumped back into your body. It’s just odd. You can’t move for most of that two hours and it’s cold. They offer blankets and heated rice bags and while this makes you very dozy, you’re not allowed to nod off. In fact, you’re required to fiddle with a hand-held rice bag in order to keep the blood flowing through the needled arm.

The whole thing makes me antsy. I’ve done it now maybe 5 times (I believe) and have had successful donations only 3 times.. the other donations were stopped partway through for one reason or another (like the time they unknowingly hit the wall of my vein which caused bleeding and hurt like hell, or the time my arm got too cold and the veins shrunk and the process was too slow as a result).

Thing is, there is a huge demand/need for platelets and they are relentless in their pleas for donors. Platelet transfusions are commonly needed for cancer patients and people who’ve lost a lot of blood after an accident, organ transplant or surgery. So in spite of the discomfort and weird factor, it feels good to do something so vital, and I really like the direct person-to-person benefit. They say it’s life saving. Can’t beat that.

Here’s me this morning, covered in rice bags, mustering a smile as best I can.