The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Blood Donation

Ohhhhhhhhhhmygod.

The quick version, in case that's all that you're here for: Bradley made a successful, full donation and I am proud of him. I, on the other hand, made only a partial donation, which in itself was fraught with complications. Read on if you want details! If not, stop here and maybe comment to congratulate sir Bradley.
So! The first complication, which was a minor one, was that Hoxworth Anderson was not open on this particular Saturday... which, if you've been playing along at home, is our very first day of eligibility to donate again. But I knew that Bradley was rarin' to git, so I made an appointment at Hoxworth Tri-County. It's about half an hour out of the way but worth it.

The sign-in process went flawlessly (and at this point I'm just talking about my experience, because Bradley was behind me in line). Temperature? Low, but normal for me. Blood pressure? Good. Pulse? Check. Iron? Rock steady, fools. Didn't even flinch at the little needle thing. Let's get crankin'.

Unfortunately, at this point in my tale I am paired with the worse possible nurse for me-- not a bad nurse, please don't think that I am saying she is a bad nurse, but we were a horrible match and I'll tell you why.

I decided to start with my left arm. Why? Because I still have needle marks there from last time so it had to have worked at some point, right? She sits me down and I inform her in no uncertain terms that I just don't want to look at what's going on or talk about it. Whatever you gotta do, do it, and let me know when it's over.

But that's all she can talk about. And when the needle isn't successful the first time, I get to hear all about it in insensitive detail, up to the point when she said, and I quote, "Every time I try to stab it, it wiggles around."

(Sorry, had to pause, just got squeamish again.)

At this point I ask her politely to please, please not say things like that. I am more than happy to try the other arm if she thinks it's a lost cause, but please please leave me out of hearing about my veins "wiggling."

But she thinks she can do it and she pulls another nurse over and together they collapse my vein. And it hurts, and that's fine, and they bandage it, and I'm over it, and I'm ready to move on to the other arm. They check with me a hundred times to make sure I'm okay (I tend to get pale during this process, especially when they won't stop talking about it), and I assure them that they can just do it already.

So they strap down my other arm or whatever they do (I have vague notions and I know what a tourniquet feels like), and the nurse is poking and poking with her finger, and telling me to squeeze or not squeeze or squeeze harder or just generally do the opposite of whatever I am doing, and meanwhile she keeps talking about what's happening and I am trying so hard to block her out. And she gets it! Spot on!

And then she mentions that "man, it's racing out of there." At which point I go pale again, but it's too late to stop her, and she keeps talking. Now I'd like to mention that there is nothing I can focus on at the time: there is no TV, I am facing two people in apheresis machines, to the right of me is my own pulsing arm, and to the left of me is Bradley's pulsing arm. There is nothing to distract me, no direction I can look to tune out.

Finally, probably 45ish hours later, she yells across the room that my blood is too slow and she doesn't think they're going to get a full donation and etc etc etc and how every time she tries to adjust the needle, I flinch like it hurts. (Yes, I can hear you, and yes, it hurts!) Other nurse comes over and moves the needle around (gawwwwd it hurts) and meanwhile they keep talking about it and I am slowly losing it.

And that's when I feel my face go hot, which for me usually means The End. And I say words I never ever want to say: "Please, can we just stop this? I don't feel well."

Which in nurse terms means that I am about to pass out (though I'm not), so my nurse is yelling across the room that I need cold towels and she flips some button that makes my chair fully recline and she is trying to get the needle out of my arm and it is finally Too Much For Me.

So I cry.

I cry because:
A) I want to badly to just do this right,
B) My arms-- both of them-- hurt pretty badly
C) No less than six people are watching me fail fail fail
D) I am overwhelmed by all the things I've been hearing
E) I have been trying not to cry and that makes it worse.

A nurse brings me an orange juice, which I cannot drink because both of my arms are bandaged at the joints so I can't bend them.

I finally stabilize enough to get out of my chair and I go to the little snack station where Bradley is and I cry all over again. And I swipe a donation sticker because no one gave me one. And then I try to leave and they don't want to let me because I'm crying and I leave anyway. And I get in the car and, still bawling, tell Bradley everything that happened and he sympathizes and then I'm fine again.

So that sucked.

Like I said, please don't think she was a bad nurse. She just couldn't adhere to the one rule I tried to lay out... the one thing that gets me through this (pretending that it isn't happening, haha).

And as a punishment for being weak and veinless, besides this huge crying jag, I have two incredibly sore arms and very little philanthropy to show for it. Oh, and an entire Hoxworth full of people who think I'm a mental case.

Here's to the next 8 weeks!