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Donor Woes
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Donor Woes |
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roxane Senior Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 505us |
My school had this medicinal, anit-septic smell to it on account of the blood drive that day. Now I only think of that smell as out of place. Although the whole thing doesn't make much sense, I've sort of antiquated the memory of that not so far off day. The words of that day are covered in an archaic glaze. All the images are sepia colored. In particular, though, the smell, for some reason, seems so odd and unusual. In precalculus class, I observed the yellowing bruise in my teacher's arm. In the center of it was a small bandage. He was wearing a sticker that said "Be nice to me- I gave blood today." After the bell sounded and I was to leave his class, I approached him. "How bad did it hurt?" I asked out of nowhere. He seemed to understand and said benignly, "Not so bad. It bruises. Why? Are you giving blood today?" I nodded, still staring at the grotesque image on his arm. "Well, it's a noble thing to do. Blood is such short supply these days. You could be saving someone's life." I didn't yet move from his side. I felt that I needed a little more reassurance that it was a "noble" thing to bleed into a plastic bag and bear a bruise for days because of it. "What blood type do you have?" he asked. "AB negative, I think." I said. "That's a very rare kind. It is so great of you to give something of yourself that is so needed." With that, for the most part, my fears were allayed. I had, since I was very small, admired (of all things) organ donors. There were always those touching stories of someone's pancreas saving a perfectly angelic 8 year old from certain death. To top it off, I lived next door to a pair of little girls who had lost their mother while she waited on a list for a liver. The girls themselves had liver transplants when they were just toddlers. They were absolutely adorable, so polite and amiable. I couldn't fathom a world without them. When I got my license, I paid the dollar that goes to help people waiting for transplants. They gave me a little orange sticker that says "ORGAN DONOR" to put on the back my license. While waiting to get my picture taken, the guy standing beside me noticed the sticker in my hand and said "I can't believe you." "Why? Do you think it's wrong to help people with what you yourself can no longer use?" I responded curtly. "No, I'm an organ donor. I just wouldn't put it on my license. If you get in an accident and an EMT sees that, do you think that they'll try very hard to save your life?" I didn't say another word to that guy. I just naively turned my head and felt quite pious and useful. By the time I had to go to the gym to give blood, I had talked to several people who weren't giving blood. Some out of fear and some of out their personal beliefs. I felt that I had to brush them off to go donate my much needed blood, so I would excuse myself and go on. In the gym, at least fifty people were seated and filling out papers needed to give blood. I approached a woman at a table. "Hi, I'm here to donate. Where do I sign in?" Without saying a word, she directed me to a clipboard and handed me a series of papers. I looked blankly at her. "Fill these out." she finally said. I went and sat down, carefully answering all the necessary questions. After about twenty minutes, I returned her pen to her. "Wait for them to call you." she grunted. I sat down in a chair near a group of chatty friends. Sullenly, I pulled out my copy of "Don Quixote" and began to read. I, of course, wanted to share in their banter, but didn't. I felt as though I was on some grave mission. In front of me was a series of booths where the potential donors were asked certain questions and would have their blood pressure taken. After that, they would have their ears pricked and have a small sample of their blood taken. From there, they were instructed to a table where they were handed a bag with a needle and some other apparatus that I am not sure what it was. After that, they sat in chairs across from where I sat, waiting to be called up to bleed. They would move down a seat each time someone was called, a cross between musical chairs and a small scale death row. Everyone looked anxious and innocuous. They would climb up on gurneys, have their arms put in tourniquettes, and quietly release about a pint of blood. They would have to sit there for a while afterwards, just as a precaution, and then go eat Little Debbie's and drink apple juice. Some people even stayed in there all day. Finally, after about twenty minutes, I was called into one of the little blue booths. "Go ahead and sit down." the nurse said. I complied and sat nervously in the hard folding chair. "How do you feel today?" she asked. "Fine," I said. She scribbled and scrawled on the papers I had just filled out. "Here, give me your arm." she said, pulling out an arm cuff to take my blood pressure with. As she did that, she popped a tiny, disposable thermometer in my mouth. She squeezed harder and harder on the cuff, the tightness becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Her cold stethoscope was pinched beneath my skin and the ever-strengthening arm cuff. At last, it began to truly pain me, almost to the point where I would feel like a real martyr, and she released it. The arm cuff exhaled quickly, as did I. "Okay, well, you can go over to that table and pick one of those bags. Then have a seat until they call for you." I walked numbly over to the table. The man behind it gave me the bag and a sticker. "Be nice to me- It's my first donation." the sticker read. "You scared?" he said. "No, I'm not afraid." I answered. "Should I be?" "Well, I wouldn't know. I never gave blood before." He had a country accent, a genial and hospitable one. "Why?" I asked. "They don't want my old tired blood," he laughed. "Good luck." I retreated with the bag to the next line of chairs. Once again, I turned to Cervantes. I was towards the end of the novel though, and finshed before even one person had moved. I decided to attempt to listen to the conversations around me and possibly join in one. For the most part, people were silent. A group of girls were attending to the donors who were then on the gurneys, trying to get them to eat or drink, sometimes, holding their hands. One of these girls was tall and skinny, with too much makeup and flat hair. She paid little attention to the donors, and focused more on the guy sitting next to me, flirting. The others went around the circle of gurneys, trying to be inspiring. One of the girls had soft pretty hair and looked very friendly and matronly. She was assisting a girl who had momentarily fainted. The people who were talked were talking about donating before. "One time, my arm hurt so bad that I could move it for the rest of the day." I didn't know why someone would say such a thing to inspire such fear. "My grandma is afraid to give blood because she thinks that she'll die from it." Maybe she would. There were so many qualifications on those forms that I would have been surprised if the boy's grandmother was allowed to. "It's not so bad. It's for a good cause." Indeed, it was for a good cause. I was astonished that so many people had come to donate. It had always seemed like the people in my school were so inconsiderate, willing to mow down people in the halls in order to get to class on time, yet here they were giving of themselves. I have to admit though, I couldn't give them much credit because all they had to do was sit there and bleed. Half of them probably only came to get out of class and eat. Finally, I was called to the gurney by the skinny girl. I feigned fear in order to avoid having to be attended by her. About ten minutes later, I was called by the nice matronly one to another gurney. The girl waitng behind me asked me if I was still afraid. I told her that I was ready, but I wasn't so convincing. I crawled onto the gurney and waited for a nurse. A big broad one floated by me. I looked up at her. "Look, it's going to be a few more minutes. You've been here for two hours. What's a few minutes going to hurt?" she snarled. I said nothing to her. I just closed my eyes and layed there on the stiff cold gurney, wishing they would take my blood. I had waited, yes for close to two hours, and then I felt the need to be needed. I needed someone to want me, at least my blood. The nurse was attending to the girl who had had those horrible pains last time, when one of the girls hovered over my head. "Congratulations, Miss. You are doing a great thing." she smiled. "They haven't even stuck me yet. I've only been pricked on the ear." I replied. "Yes, but if it wasn't for people like you, I wouldn't be here today. You see, two years ago, I was in a car crash that took my brother's life. I survived because one the blood that I received. Unfortunately, my brother had a rare blood type and could not be saved." she said as those she rehearsed it. There was, however, a terribly sad look in her eyes that showed that she was earnest. I muttered "Thank you" and she walked away. At last, the nurse came to me. "Sorry it took so long." "That's okay." I said. She handed me a ball. "This is for you to squeeze." She then proceeded to put my arm in a tourniquette and sterlize a little patch of it. "Now to find a vein." she said. She had me squeeze the ball as she tighten the tourniquette. It was tighter even than the arm cuff, before she, quite puzzled, removed it. "Let me try your other arm. I can't find any veins." I rolled over and she checked the other arm. My hands were freezing from the loss of circulation. My skin was whiter than normal. "Hey Norma, this one's got no veins!" the nurse yelled across the room, much to my chagrin. I sat feeblely on the gurney as the head nurse, Norma, looked for a vein also. She pulled twice as hard, squeezed twice as hard, I had to turn away. "Well, I think that I've got one." she marked it with a blue ink pen. "Betty, come back over here and see if you feel it. If you don't, you don't have to stick her. I will." Norma yelled. Betty, the original nurse, waddled over and pressed into the blue mark on my skin. My dug the tip on her finger into it and rotated, all the while looking puzzled and apathetic. "I don't feel it." Betty admitted. "Well, I'll do it then," Norma declaimed, picking up the needle. I turned my whole head away from the scene as she thrust the needle into my wrist. I winced, feeling that the pain was only temporary though. Then, suddenly, she began to violently wrench the thing around inside me, probing for a vein. "Well, I lost it." she said, continuing to search. The pain was searing. I could feel it rip my skin a little and bounce off of tissue and arteries. "Does that hurt?" she asked. "Yeah, a little," but by this time, there were tears in my eyes. I waiting for the climax, when finally they would find the vein. She saw my tears and jerked the needle out. A pathetic trickle of blood came out of the hole. "Well, it should never hurt. I'm sorry, hon." she quickly handed me a piece of gauze to clot the blood with, and then she left. Tears continued down my face. I felt almost as though I had been raped: drawn into this, thinking that I'd do good to someone, but being stuck with a needle and sent away, bleeding and useless. It was a failure. The matronly girl asked if I was alright and offered to bandage up my arm, which was bleeding a little worse. I obliged her, and put pretty pink gauze of the little wound. "Oh, you tried so hard," she said to console me, but it only made me feel more pathetic. The pain, I could deal with, but to have not given blood when hundreds of others had come and gone, contributing kindly, was an unbearable thought. I walked over to the table where the donors were eating and sat down. "Would you like something to drink?" a girl asked me. "No thanks." I replied. "You have to. You just gave blood." she irritatedly insisted. "No, I have no veins. I didn't give blood." I said monotonously. She walked away from me too. I peeled the sticker that branded me as a donor off of my chest, which felt empty. I sat and wanted to cry again. I buried my face in my hands. I had come to do such a "noble" thing, but found myself physically incapable of doing so. Some people can fail through lack of stamina, lack of conscience. I failed because I was less than human. I had no veins. I thought of my neighbors, their mother, the girl whose brother perished, and saw myself as their demise. Then, I thought of all those angelic eight year olds, and how I wouldn't be credited with helping a single one of them until I died and left them something besides blood. It wasn't enough. Why was I the only person unable to give blood? I had failed as a human. All the donors sat around, talking about their icy hands, bruised arms and faintness: their donor woes. I sat, crying silently, chastising myself, wishing that I had such woes. ------------------ "Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too long in such a place as this." Charles Dickens roxane |
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| © Copyright 1999 roxane - All Rights Reserved | |||
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DreamEvil Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 2396 |
Damn! I can well understand and sympathize with you as I have donated plasma for years and have seen the dejected faces of those turned away for having small veins. Trust me though, you venepuncture a small vein and you will get major infiltration if they strike it and several failed sticks if they do not. Not to mention collapsing it. ------------------ Now and forever, my heart hears ~one voice~. DreamEvil© |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
And the ironic part in my situation, is that I have easily identifiable veins, that show easily...and yet I can NEVER get a nurse who knows how to use a needle!! OUCH! Well written! |
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Watcher666 Senior Member
since 1999-10-13
Posts 1606 |
Just a few facts.The size of the needle used is a 12 gauge.Quite large,just compare it to a garden hosse.The average Nurse can use a 18 gauge for venous access without problems,but the smaller the gauge the bigger the needle,the harder the stick.Donations require a person very skilled in blood drawing.It's not your fault and you should never feel guilty or inadequate because of small veins.45% of the population get turned down for donations due to small veins.Well written prose ! ------------------ Illusion...what we see and what we do...it's all up to you. |
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merlynh Member
since 1999-09-26
Posts 411deer park, wa |
I would like to know if this is fiction? It was written very well. I'll look for more of your work. |
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