It's a Tuesday night, and I've just walked in the door after a day at work. My brother answers the phone; it’s for me.
"Hello?" I ask.
"Hi, this is (insert generic name here) from LifeSource."
Brick wall. It's over. There's no escape.
LifeSource is the area's blood bank. I've given blood once: my senior year of high school. It was the first time I weighed over the 115 pounds necessary to donate.
"Would you be able to help us out by donating?" the genderless, nasal voice asks.
Unfortunately, my skinny, malnourished, pale body is still above 115. I sigh and quietly resign myself to parting with a pint.
"Yeah, sure."
There's really no way to refuse. They're a nonprofit organization that saves lives. I'll shoot down telemarketers any day. But for some reason, the minute LifeSource calls, I imagine an adorable baby with a large laceration on its leg, desperately asking me to “donwate bwood.” Which, now that I think about it, is probably just something wrong with me and completely non-relatable. Sorry.
Plus I'm spineless. If it’s at all reasonable, I’ll say yes. Hey Bobby, can you drive me to the airport? I’m not busy. Why not? Hey, I need to borrow some money? Fine. Take your shirt off and feed me grapes! Ok, but this is the last time.
“Great,” says Mildred (I decided that’s her name). “Oh, you’re AB+. That means you can donate platelets.”
Brick wall number two.
Platelets give humans the ability to heal; they’re the little buggers that cause wounds to clot. They also take about two hours to donate. You get hooked up to a machine; they extract your blood, filter the platelets out, and put the blood back. It’s like taking a car out for a spin and coming back without any seatbelts or airbags.
Now I really can’t refuse. Turning down a donation of whole blood is like not helping a car accident victim; they might die anyway, whether they get your blood or not. Turning down a platelet donation is like saying, “Ha. You will die from that paper cut, sucka!”
“Great, we’ll see you this Saturday then,” the voice concludes. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I respond, crossing off “Be Emo and Cut Myself” from my weekend To-Do list.
Saturday rolls around. I miss a boating opportunity and show up for my appointment. The bleak decoration, the smell of sanitary conditions, the awful taste in magazines: this must be the right place. I sign in, exchange perfunctory greetings with the woman behind the desk, and am handed the infamous Clipboard of Personal Questions.
Now, the Clipboard does have a real purpose. I realize the importance of obtaining accurate information about donors so as to prevent the distribution of tainted blood. However, the Clipboard’s main purpose is to remind me of two particulars:
- The small number of places I’ve traveled to.
- The lack of sex I’ve been having.
Then the nurses argue over whether I weigh enough or not. Then they argue over whether my veins are large enough. But the weird thing is they ask me, as if I should know their rules and regulations.
“Do you weigh enough?” one asks.
“Umm…you tell me,” I respond.
“Are your veins large enough?” questions another.
“Is that something I should know?”
“Do you understand anything about the aphresis procedure?” the first nurse condescendingly demands.
“Well, I have ER out on DVD from the library, but I don’t think it’s come up yet.”
Finally, I get the green light and take a seat in a blue donation chair. A list of films is thrust into my hands and I’m asked to pick one. After a careful conference with my mood and taste, I select Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The DVD plays and a snack pack of Oreos is dispensed to me. I snack and watch in comfort as I wait for the inevitable needle-stick.
But it never comes. My nurse (or technician or stewardess, whatever they are) seems to be fussing with the machine quite a bit. It’s a bit distracting. I’m trying to watch John Candy annoy Steve Martin to hell, but it’s P (something Slavic) annoying me with the constant beeping of the machine. She replaces something with a new set. After that, she calls the company on the phone and follows their directions. No luck.
Two hours after arriving at the clinic, I walk out the door. They couldn’t fix the machine and someone else was using their other one. Because my paperwork had been filled out for platelets (or, more likely, because they’re lazy and didn’t want to get a new form), I was not allowed to donate whole blood in lieu of platelets.
So what I did today: miss boating on Lake Michigan with my friends and instead deplete a nonprofit organization of its snack foods and t-shirt supply.
I leave, hoping the paperwork somehow goes through and it looks like I did donate today, meaning they’ll never call me again.
They call again.
I experience the same bleeding baby image, the same platelet request, and respond with the same pained resignation. As a creative writer, it’s rather pathetic that I can’t invent an excuse to get myself out of something as easy as blood donation. On the other hand, it gives me material to share with you lovely people.
So I show up at Life Source again, this time on a Thursday night after work. The Clipboard of Personal Questions appears again; I weep internally.
Different people are on duty tonight. They argue less over whether I weigh enough and things seem to be going smoothly. The machine is working this time and my veins must be large enough because the needle slides in easily. My snobbish cultural education decides a viewing of Groundhog Day is in order, and I settle back to watch Bill Murray’s misfortune.
But the misfortune on display this evening would turn out to be mine.
My nurse (oh, let’s just call her Petunia, k?) keeps fussing with my machine, staring at some sort of pressure meter. Eventually, she’s satisfied and walks away.
A moment later the needle starts vibrating around in my arm.
Now, vibration is not all together a bad thing. For example, the ability to hear is something I enjoy. This sensation is possible due to sound waves causing my ear drums to vibrate, sending a decipherable signal to my brain, allowing me to understand that you just said, “no means no.” Another example: The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” An excellent song, defining for later generations what a perfect single is. I’m sure some of you can imagine another example of vibration (and did so right away) without any of my help. All of these are good.
A shaking tube sucking the blood out of my body? Not so good.
I stare at the jittery fluid extraction device, the cheer Harold Ramis had provided me with quickly draining away. Someone takes notice.
“Is anything wrong?” Petunia asks.
“Well, yes, unless this thing has a spin cycle,” I answer.
Suddenly, I have more attention from the staff than the TV did a moment earlier. They adjust the needle, driving its point further into my arm. It hurts. It hurts pretty badly.
They fuss some more; the grimace on my face increases in intensity. I begin to think that maybe forcing the needle further and further into me is not the best course of action. I’m not a bottomless cavern, after all.
My old friend P (something Slavic) appears and comes over to help. She touches my arm just above the needle; it’s rock hard.
“Alright, we’re going to have to stop,” she says.
The needle had gone through my vein. I was leaking fresh blood into my arm along with the blood being sent back to me deprived of platelets. Happy happy joy joy.
They unplug me and strap a bandage on. I notice that the tube is full of my blood as Petunia comes back.
“We weren’t able to reinfuse your blood. So unfortunately you won’t be able to donate again for 56 days.”
Life needs a soundtrack because in my head Handel started blaring from all my brain’s synapses. In 56 days, I’ll be a thousand miles away from this place and their wretched, life-saving Samaritan ways.
I return to the lobby, grabbing a seat for the required fifteen minute “cool down.” I eat some Oreos and browse the newspaper. The receptionist just sits there watching me.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” she says.
“Oh, thanks. I guess these things just happen,” I say. I’m too forgetful to hold grudges, so I usually anticipate the memory lapse and don’t care from the start. I joke instead.
“Shouldn’t you guys have some Anne Rice novels lying around?” I inquire.
“What hunny?”
“Anne Rice. She’s a popular novelist, writes about vampires.” Still nothing. “This is a blood bank.” Zero reaction. “You know what? Forget it.” I throw back the rest of my juice and depart, my opinion of the place falling and falling.
And the bastards didn’t even give me one of those goddamn stickers saying, “Be nice to me. I gave blood.” I at least deserved one saying, “Don’t touch my arm. I tried to give blood and earned a hematoma.”
It’s been almost a week. I still have a bruise.
And so arises a challenging conundrum: I will at some point in my life again be petitioned for blood donation. What do I do?
It seems unfair to stop helping save lives because of this experience at one place. On the other hand, I’m 0 for 2 in the span of a few weeks. Maybe I’m just cursed.
As I type away, the computer screen illuminates the inner part of my arm, bringing my gaze to rest on the yellowish bruise. I scoff at their incompetence, yet as I do, I can’t help but think that if I had massive internal bleeding instead of a bruise, I would want there to be donated blood there for me.
I decide to give it another shot someday. Not now. Not for 56 days, at least. But someday, I’ll try again.
The phone rings.
No. It can’t be. It’s only been 5 days, nowhere near 56. Maybe they’re calling to apologize, to check up on me. That must be it. Or it could be someone else entirely: a friend, a relative, a wrong number. Somehow I’m not convinced. I pick up the receiver.
“Hello?”
My heart is pounding. I can’t hear the first couple words because of the resonance of my thumping rib cage, but the last two words cause my heart to beat more violently.
“…to donate?” the voice of Satan asks.
Silence. Not only on the phone line, but in my mind. This wasn’t one of those moments where thoughts rush over me and I have an inner freak-out. There was literally silence in my being. I couldn’t think about this phone call not really happening because, as far as I was convinced, it wasn’t happening.
“Hello?” Lucifer asks impatiently.
“What?” I manage to squeak out.
“This is the Salvation Army. Do you have any clothes to donate?”
“What?” I’m still in a daze and the request confuses me.
“Clothes. To donate. Do you have any?”
“Just clothes?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, sir. Just clothes.”
“Do I have to fill out a clipboard?”
“No, just leave the clothes outside and we’ll pick them up.”
“Do I weigh enough?”
“Huh?”
“I only weigh 123 pounds.”
“Um…yeah, that’s fine. Just leave the clothes on the porch and our truck will pick them up.”
“How long will I be hooked up to the machine?”
“What? There’s no machine. Just put a box of clothes outside.” He’s getting frustrated.
“What if you can’t reinfuse me?”
“Just put the clothes outside! This isn’t difficult. I’m not trying to draw blood.”
I faint.
