Story of the Day 7/22/2011

Aaron and I became lab animals today.

Well, not exactly, no one was experimenting on us. We were simply donating blood. I was donating the standard pint, at the Indiana Blood Center, and Aaron, because he is such a prime physical specimen, had been asked to donate a double unit- yep, two pints.

Okay, it wasn’t because he was such a prime physical specimen, it was because they were out, or almost out, of his blood type.

So we were sitting there, or really, lying there, having blood drained from our left arms, and a group walks through- a group of about 10 mid-twentyish folk wearing white lab coats being led by an older man in a lab coat.
Older being relative to them, not to me. I probably could have babysat him, 38 years ago.

At any rate, the older man came over and asked if we minded if this group of young doctors came through and he would explain to them what was being done. Ah , what the heck , my underwear wasn’t showing and there was nothing good on the TV, which wasn’t’ even visible from where I was lying.

As it turned out, we were much more entertaining that the TV, because a few of the medical students or interns or residents or who knows what they were, took to staring at me and at Aaron- and not because we were fine physical specimens. Apparently, they were not used to seeing people signing.

While they are standing around in a semi-organized group, the educator gives them some detailed explanation about how the blood is collected, the chemicals in the bags they use to collect it, the mixing procedure, the kinds of needles. Oh and he asks if any of them have problems with needles.
None do, so he hands around a needle of the type that is inserted into my left arm and one of the young docs faints.
She would have hit the floor except that the young man standing near here had apparently been trained in “ how to catch a fainting female” – which must have been one of the classes he took in medical school. At any rate, he did a very good job of catching her before she hit the floor. They then lay her down, and brought over a fan and some ice cold towels.

I felt much better about my bit of lightheadedness, post donating.

As we left the building, Aaron commented to me, “She should become a pharmacist”.