oceantheorem | (no subject)

I've been pretty strapped for cash lately, so when some of my new friends at the failbookstore suggested we all go donate plasma together, I conveniently forgot that I have low blood pressure and a deathly fear of needles. You get $35 for donating something your body already makes! It's win-win!

So I got up at 6 this morning and drove around Provo and Orem picking up friends. We arrived at the plasma center a little after 7, and I was shocked to see that the place was already bustling. The nurses ushered us over to one side of the waiting room and asked us to get our IDs out and take off our coats and sweaters so they could check our veins.

Melissa's veins were dubbed perfect. Ashley was informed that she had no veins and they would not like her plasma, thankyouverymuchforcominginhaveaniceday. Alex was determined to have one good vein and one bad vein, but the bad one was apparently "good enough," so he was okayed. And then the nurse guy came over to me.

He tied a strip of rubber around my upper arm and determined that my left arm had a great vein. He then moved the rubber constrictor over to my right arm, and tied it rather tighter than it had been on the left. At this point I was actually silently praying that he wouldn't find a vein, because my fear of needles had kicked in full force, and I had my mom's voice running through my head--"Wow, you must be really desperate for money if you're willing to donate plasma... I know how you feel about needles." I also had Jim's voice running through my head, saying, "Donating plasma was the worst experience of my life. They take stuff out and then inject part of it back into you, only it's room temperature, so it floods your entire body with this awful icy cold feeling..." So I was freaking out a bit.

The guy asked me to tighten and release my hand a few times, and I remember thinking, "Okay, just breathe." And the next thing I remember is looking up from the floor at Melissa and thinking, "Aaah, crap. This is bad."

Apparently I simply fell over, and was lucky to have had a nurse standing behind me, who caught me and lowered me to the floor. I have no idea how long I was unconscious, but I did have some sort of weird crazy dream I only partly remember now. The whole thing had an "Oh no, oh no, this is bad" sort of feel to it, and I think when I woke up I tried to say "Oh no" and it came out more like "Hnngg llggnngg."

Anyway. I moved to a couch and drank half a liter of water and then had Melissa drive my car home.

So yeah. No plasma donation for me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh dear. That's something I'll have to remember not to try. I always feel a little guilty about not donating blood, but seriously.

Once the vet gave my cat an IV and I started feeling faint and had to sit down.

I hope you are feeling better now!

Yeah, I always make some sort of excuse to not go when there is a blood drive... and now I remember why!

i have really good veins. i'm glad i wasn't there. ha.

Yeah... in retrospect, the whole plan was made of utter fail.

If it makes you feel better, the last time they tried to draw blood from me, it totally didn't work and I started to hyperventilate. I mean, they had the needle in and were relying on my blood pressure and heartbeat to fill the vial and everything. Only it, umm, didn't. (Evidently my circulatory system didn't get the memo.)

So they made me come back the next day and just used a traditional plunger syringe. They were like, "Here, hold this against your arm," and I was like, Wait, what would I need to hold-- Oh, they're done already?

This is the second time in my life I've fainted--the first was when I was 17 and they wanted to take two vials of blood to test for anemia. I fell forward out of the chair. Since then I've almost always asked to be laid down for bloodwork, but apparently the tempation of $35 was enough to make me completely forget I'm such a wuss...