Story of the Day 3/3/2011

I felt much better after they picked me up off the floor.
The second time.
Okay, I wasn’t really on the floor.
My son and I heard the call- ( which was obviously loud, if we heard it) that there was a need for blood- so we drove off to the downtown Indy Blood Center to donate.
I do this about 5 times a year. On a good year, they take my blood, twice. This is because I tend to be a little anemic.
And they only take it this often because I have learned how to cheat. I drink some caffeine, but not a lot of other fluids- and walk a bit- at a quick pace, before going in to give. It raises the hematocrit for an entire 20 minutes, which is just long enough for me to swear to them that I have never had sex with a prostitute or shared needles or had any really interesting tattoos or body piercings or a whole mess of diseases that I have never heard of and can certainly not pronounce.

I got off to a good start. The machine that determines if there is enough iron in my blood didn’t’ like my right finger, but it decided my left finger was better.
I am not joking; they will test your other hand, if you are a little low, and can get a substantially different reading. This happened last time, too, so maybe next time I will tell them to stick my right middle finger before my left t save myself the extra prick. It also makes me wonder how the left side of my body rates the better quality blood…

So, I passed the anemia test, and was seated on one of their very nice loungers pumping up a nice fist every 5 seconds while the blood flowed into the plastic bag. And even just a little bit before she detached the now full bag, I was feeling a little bit light headed.
From previous experience, I already knew that it is stupid to try to stand up quickly, but by the time she detached the bag, standing up at all wasn’t looking like a very good idea.
Apparently, I wasn’t looking very good either, and she rushed out and got me a soda and then a juice container.
Then, after I couldn’t keep my eyes open, she started poking me. I did revive. And drank some more juice- and the next thing I knew that woman was poking me again.
After about 20 minutes, and more liquid and some cookies, I walked over to the seating area, where Aaron had bee busily eating every package of Oreos that they had.

I sat there very nicely for a few minutes, and then my head made it’s way down to the table. Two of the workers came over and decided they should lay me down on the floor. The idea of this was enough to revive me to the point where I told them I could make it to the lounge chair that was about 5 feet away. With help. Which is what happened.

Eventually, after some more liquids, I went back to sit at the table. By now, all of the Oreos were gone and Aaron was finishing off the last packet of peanut butter crackers. I am not exaggerating.

I sat there and felt quite a lot better, but told my bladder to shut up and behave for a few more minutes, because I really didn’t want those workers trailing me into the bathroom- which had now become a bit of a necessity as there is a limit to how many ounces of liquid I can drink and not need to pee- and I was past that limit!

I held out until I was sure their attention was focused elsewhere ad made a mad dash of a slow walk t the bathroom.

After I came out, Aaron was ready to leave.
I was rather concerned that I had embarrassed him, publicly humiliated him to the point where he would never go back to that blood center again, at least not with me.
But dear Aaron assured me that this was in no way true, and he was even relieved that no one there seemed to notice that he had eaten up every kosher cookie and cracker they had.

Hey, he is a growing boy!