One way to spend part of a Saturday afternoon.

Bloody Business


During my sojourn in the big city I got into the practice of donating blood every two or three months. The regional Red Cross center was only a short drive away. By going there on a Saturday morning, or some other slow time of day, I could avoid the lines often found at bloodmobile events. Usually I was in and out in less than an hour.

There was a bit of a tradeoff. The needle sticks weren’t always as well-done as at the bloodmobiles. A time or two I got “practiced’ on by a nurse whose technique really needed some work. I tried not to mind too much. They had to learn on somebody.

Now I live in a small town again, far from the nearest donor center. We have bloodmobiles now and then, but I don’t always make it to them for one reason or another. I’ve fallen badly behind on donations.

Recently I drove an hour to the nearest city to take care of some personal and work-related shopping. While walking around a large shopping center, I came across a bloodmobile. A worker was standing outside trying to drum up business. I declined to donate and went on my way.

As I went about my shopping, I thought about how long it had been since my last blood donation. Really, I needed to donate again. I’d missed a recent bloodmobile near home. I wasn’t in that big of a hurry. Somebody, somewhere, was going to need a unit of A+.

So as I passed back by the bloodmobile a while later, I stopped. The same worker was outside with her sign. “I changed my mind,” I said. She ushered me inside the bloodmobile bus.

Most bloodmobiles I’ve seen set up tables and donor couches in a school or hospital or other public place. This one just had the donor bus itself. It was quite cramped inside, with donor couches, equipment and storage cabinets, and three workers. A worker sat me down across a tiny counter from him and asked to see some I.D. I produced my driver’s license. Since I’d donated with their organization before, they had my details in the computer. There was a bit of confusion caused by someone’s getting my birthday off by ten days. Once we had that straightened out, things went smoothly.

The attendant took me back into a minute roomette about four feet square. I knew what this was about. They always ask a battery of questions designed to determine whether a potential donor is at risk for various diseases. Since many of the diseases they’re worried about are venereal, the questions get awfully personal. I’ve never much minded them, since I’m always able to give a “no” answer to nearly every question.

The exception is the one about whether I’ve been deferred before. It happened twice back when I was in college. The first time was my very first attempted donation. I was so nervous about the needles my heartbeat did funny things. They decided I wasn’t a good risk. The second time, a couple of years later, I had recently been to Central America. Although the region I had visited was a mountainous area without malaria, somebody apparently decided it was too close to the malarial regions anyway. To add insult to injury, I was experiencing a late acne outbreak at the time, and they decided I looked like I might have something contagious. It was mortifying.

I’ve had to explain about the deferrals dozens of times since. Once again I prepared to explain. I was happy when they didn’t ask the question. Apparently it has dropped out somewhere during one of the periodic revisions to the questionnaire.

In this case the really delicate questions were all asked by a computer. The attendant left me alone in the cubicle while the computer asked the questions. They could be heard easily through the cubicle’s paper-thin partition, but I was able to give my yes-or-no answers by tapping the touch screen.

While I was doing this another donor who had stepped into the bus was being processed. She was put into the cubicle beside mine. Her touch screen computer failed to work. At the same time the man who was processing us experienced a lock-up on his own computer.

A nurse came over to look. “What you done did?” she wondered. The attendant said he hadn’t done anything to provoke the malfunction. Anybody familiar with computers knows that he was probably telling the truth.

I sat in the cubicle while they tried to reboot, listening to the drone of the generator that maintained the bus’s electricity, beginning to regret my decision to come in. I wasn’t in a hurry, but I hadn’t bargained on spending half the afternoon there either! Besides, it was about time for lunch.

Eventually everything was sorted out. My processing was finished. I was able to move down the narrow aisle to one of the four donor couches. Since my left arm was already feeling a bit sore for some reason, I asked to be stuck in the right and was given a couch configured for that arm.

While the nurse went over my paperwork and got the blood-drawing paraphernalia ready, I looked toward the front of the bus. I’d heard the woman who came in after me talking about her five-month-old baby. The baby lay in her carrier at the front of the bus. The bloodmobile worker whom I’d seen holding the sign outside earlier sat with the little girl, giving her a bottle. The baby was adorable, with that fine, smooth skin that only babies have. She hardly made a sound, except for a tiny bit of fussing when her bottle was done. She was clearly in good hands.

The nurse gave me a foam ball and had me do a couple of squeezes. She painted my arm with chilly iodine. I knew that the stick was imminent. Usually I look out the window during that part. There was no window by me, so I sort of stared at the ceiling. It was soon done—not the best stick I’ve ever had, but not too bad.

After that I just had to lie there and squeeze the ball every few seconds while the blood ran out. The attendants chatted with me as they do to make sure you haven't keeled over. Nearby the baby, her meal over, looked around with that wonderful, wide-eyed, fascinated baby expression. She was the kind of baby that makes you almost want to go right out and have one of your own. She showed no anxiety over not having her mother right there—which gave the mother a chance to relax and bleed in peace.

Within a few minutes I had bled out my unit. The nurse dressed my arm. I got up and sat down on a tiny seat at the front of the bus, across the aisle from the baby and the woman watching her. She gave me a bottle of water and offered me a snack. I planned to eat lunch as soon as I was done, so I took the snack for later and just drank the water and watched the baby. I’d never seen an infant at a bloodmobile before. They really do try their best to make it convenient for donors when they can.

My water finished, I collected my shopping bags and headed out. It was a beautiful blue day outside, and getting warm enough that I was about ready to get out of my jacket. I headed toward the distant corner of the shopping center where my car was parked. It felt good (and just a little sore) to have that done. Now it was time to go have some lunch. They tell you not to miss any meals after giving blood. I had no intention of doing so.

Always hated all those questions. You go in with good intentions and then they give you essentially a "lie detector test".

I just look at the grilling as part of the process. It's interesting to see how the questionnaire and the procedures around it have changed over the years. Thanks to BSE they've kept adding countries to the watch list.