MCF is Bleeding

I am, of course, no stranger to bleeding. Longtime readers have read and heard such tales many times. The broken glass through my lip. The birth defect in my intestines. The flag pole across my noggin. Bullies. Asphalt in my knee. A sharpened pencil through the palm of my hand. Hands scraped across pavement as I flew over the handlebars of my bike. Cat scratches. I could write for years about all the blood I've shed, but there have only been two occasions that it was voluntary.

I've never liked the idea of needles. I'm stranger to pain, but I'm no fan of it either. The problem is largely psychological. Nurses had to restrain me when I split my lip open at the age of five, because I was hysterical at the notion of them jabbing me in the arm. I vaguely remember inoculations, and I know I didn't like those either. Thankfully, I never had an allergy test. A friend of mind had one once and showed me his shoulder, which looked like pegboard behind a tool bench, a grid of holes. He explained how they injected him with stuff to see if he had an allergic reaction to anything.

I'm not sure what it was, but I conceded to donate blood when I was a Senior in high school. Maybe the Brothers who ran the place did a good job selling it as a good deed, and that we as Christians should save lives. Maybe it was mandatory. I honestly don't remember. I do remember what hurt the most, and it wasn't the needled. A nurse pricked my finger beforehand, a standard test, and took a little drop of blood on a glass slide. I swear she used a thumb tack on my thumb, and I definitely felt it. When it came time to lay back and have a needled slid into my harm, there was an initial pinch then I was fine. I had a ball or a cylinder that I was told to squeeze, and I honestly only felt dizzy when I glanced over and saw the red stuff flowing through a tube in a loop to the hanging packed. It was like I had a crazy straw in my arm.

When it was over, I got free cookies and juice, likely the true incentive for me. It was a Friday, which meant I worked after school at my job on the student cleaning crew. I remember feeling lightheaded, and wondering if that's what it was like to be drunk. I was still a good three or four years away from my first beer. I worked a six hour shift, then my parents picked me up as usual. Donating blood wasn't so bad, and I'd probably do it again. My mom was really proud, and told me how she once lied when she was my age and said she was older on some forms, because my grandmother wouldn't give her consent to give blood.

About a week later, I got a letter, expecting it to be my donor card. These days, if my mom “accidentally” opens my mail, she'll write “oops” on the envelope and leave it on the hall table for me. But when I was a minor, there was no need to say she thought it was addressed to my dad; it was her right as a parent. So, when I got home from school, my mom explained that I needed to see a doctor and have my blood checked. The blood I donated showed signs of anemia, and they opted not to use it. I'd gone through it for nothing, and when I went to a doctor, grudgingly accepting another needle poke, tests came back fine. They had gotten false results, and wasted good blood.

I do wonder now if my blood was a little anemic back then, perhaps early hints of the birth defect that would finally rupture when I was nearly 25. Whatever the reason, I would never donate blood again, at least until this past Friday. For weeks, my company has aggressively advertised a blood drive, with posters of happy blood droplets on every wall and several point people in the company canvassing for recruits. I never signed up, and gave a few weak assents to people when asked directly, but I did consider it. When one of the many people saw me in the hall and asked if I was going, I heard myself tell him “Sure, I was just heading over there!”

I was actually on my way to the mailroom to return a movie to Netflix, but it was on the way to the cafeteria. I saw a few other people who encouraged me, and before I knew it, I was filling out a form. I had to answer over 70 questions, ranging from whether I'd ever tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease to whether I'd had relations with another man, “even once”. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and just drawn a single line down the “NO” column. Times had clearly changed since I was in high school. The only thing I tentatively answered “YES” to was a question about having a bleeding condition. The nurse conducting the pre-donation interview asked me to elaborate, and he'd never heard of a Meckel's diverticulum, nor was it in his book. Ultimately, we determined that the question was asking for any current things that would make me bleed, or if I couldn't stop bleeding. It seemed I was a fine candidate after all.

I will say that the method of taking blood from my finger improved from the thumb tack. Now there's this little plastic device, they click it, and you barely feel it. I wouldn't know it had done anything until he squeezed my finger and a droplet of blood appeared. I moved on to the donation area, where the nurse couldn't find a good vein in either arm. When I was in the hospital being treated for my intestinal defect, they checked my blood round the clock. Most nurses were excellent, but I did have one who stuck me a few times before finding a vein. It was Déjà vu as she called over another nurse: “Leticia, would you use this one?” The other nurse twisted my left arm back and forth a few times, then finally nodded.

I lay back as the first nurse swabbed my arm. “You're doing fine,” she said, which I found funny since we technically hadn't done anything yet. I felt the needle go in, and I winced a little. She apologized, then proceeded to root around under my skin with the thing. Maybe she was a dental hygienist in a past life, and thought she was scraping plaque off teeth and not putting a needle in a vein. “Sorry...I know I'm hurting you, but I have to find that vein.” I nodded, gritted my teeth, and managed a sincere-sounding “No problem; I understand.” Finally it was in, and I as I lay there expecting to feel dizzy, I felt relaxed. Nearby, nurses were escorting one girl out who was very shaky, and describing the lightheaded tingling sensations one experiences equally with nervousness and actual blood loss. I focused instead on the ceiling panels and the lights, and had an odd thought that someday, that's going to be my final perspective. I'll be lying on my back staring at the ceiling while hospital type people move about as though I wasn't there, occasionally putting a clipboard over my shins and using me for a table. I very much wanted to be vertical again.

I was told I was halfway done, and I thought things were going by quickly. I was told I was three quarters of the way about four or five times, and I started to think maybe I was being lied to. I couldn't bring myself to look at the actual pouch. I don't know why seeing maroon pouches attached to my coworkers around me didn't bother me, but I definitely didn't want to look at one on my own arm. When I was finally done for real, I asked the nurse if I could do normal activities, and she said I just needed to drink plenty of fluids. I went on to ask about “physical stuff”, and she cautiously asked me for clarification. “I'm playing paintball tomorrow,” I explained, as she sighed in relief. “That's tomorrow,” she said, and I took that to mean I'd be fine.

Hopefully history won't repeat itself. In a week or so I'll get a donor card, and not a letter telling me to have my doctor double check their test results. I didn't suffer any adverse effects, and I was fine during paintball on Saturday. The one instance of lightheadedness I blame on a new castle that was AWESOME, but was a maze of slopes, ramps, and inclines. Now that I don't run every day anymore, I had to adjust my strategy and only sprint in short bursts. I definitely proved that I can spare a pint of blood and do what I normally do not long after. I would probably donate again, and my sole complaint is this:



Nice hematoma, yes? I had gauze wrapped around that until the following morning so it was a bit of a surprise, at least initially. I quickly accepted that as what I should have expected after the way the nurse was stirring the interior of my arm. If I do this again, hopefully my veins are less shy or the nurse has more skills. People often overreact in my line of work to the smallest grammatical errors, but it puts things in perspective when you see what happens if a person makes a mistake in other fields. Proportionately, I guess you could say I've got a typo in my arm.