This makes me nervous, because my last three attempts to donate were unsuccessful.
Fail #1:
I went to a campus blood drive while I was in college. The nurse said my veins were difficult to find - an absolutely absurd claim; between my pale skin and prominent veins, finding a good vein on my arm to take blood from is about as challenging as finding an anaconda beneath a piece of Saran Wrap. The nurse then inserted the needle into my arm. When she didn't hit a vein, she began to dig around with the needle, poking and prodding with the same enthusiasm (and about the same delicacy) as a pig digging for truffles.
After about five minutes of this torture, the nurse finally declared me a lost cause and sent me home with a fresh bruise that stretched from my wrist to my armpit.
Fail #2:
I attempted to give platelets: a more time-consuming process than normal blood donation. They got the needle in okay but decided to halt the procedure when I began to shake uncontrollably and my skin turned the color of sun-bleached lettuce.
Fail #3:
I didn't even make it to the needle. Immediately after testing my blood for the appropriate iron levels, the nurse shook her head and told me I wasn't eligible to donate. Her tone was kind enough, but I knew what she was really saying: My blood was crap. It would be useless in life-saving, and it was a miracle that it was even keeping me alive. My blood was so insubstantial that if I got a paper cut, the blood would probably escape in a plume of red mist.
So wish me luck, friends; someone's life depends on it.
2 comments:
look on the bright side...if you can't donate at least you won't get the annoying calls from the red cross. eh? Best of luck anyhow..
i figured you'd never be able to donate simply because you can't if you'd gotten a tattoo in the previous six months, and since you never go six months without new ink, i figured that would knock you out of contention permanently, lol.
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