eye's hindsight vol 7
weve got a bleeder!
during my last semester of college, i was living both the life of the starving college student and that of a starving artist simultaneously. i was earning enough through work to pay my rent and bills, but just barely so. i certainly wasnt making enough to fund the solo art exhibition that i had to put together in order to graduate.
one day between classes i noticed a short article in the school paper talking about a new blood plasma donation center that was put up in town. well, i dont remember if they called it a "donation" center or not, but it wasnt a donation thing, they paid you for it. according to the paper you would get $20 per visit, and $30 if you went a second time within a week.
damn, thats some good money, especially if all i have to do is bleed!
so i went to check it out. first they stabbed my finger tip with this little keychain looking torture devise, and the girl behind the desk siphoned the drop of blood that appeared through a clear coffee stirrer straw type thing with such skill and ease that i could almost feel gravity shake a fist-like boulder in anger somewhere in the distance.
then they ran me through the standard gamut of questions, like a regular donation (for those who have never done so, its things like do you have aids or hepatitis, have you ever shot heroin, vacationed in africa, had sex with other men, spent time in prison, have monkeys or cyborgs in your immediate family, etc.). they also asked if i had donated whole blood recently, because if i had, i wouldnt be able to donate/sell plasma for something like 6 weeks. i hadnt, i was good.
i passed as expected. then they stuck me in this little 6'x6' room with a desk and a couple of chairs, where they had somebody check my blood pressure and pulse to make sure both were in the proper range (if its too low, it takes too long for your blood to come out and makes the process all but impossible; if its too high, lightning bolts strike the building and the dead rise to eat the brains of the donors/sellers). i passed with no problems there either. i didnt expect a problem; i may be slightly overweight, but my blood pressure is fine and my pulse rate is healty.
after a short wait, they brought me over to the back of the building, where there were about 8 rows of these doctors office type reclined chair/bed things, with a big machine sitting next to each one, about 5 feet tall, seemingly a solid metal box, and the front of it looking like something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. i thought it was going to talk to me, but no such luck. they sat me down in the bed, and asked which arm.
the machine was on my left, so i chose left. they ran a bunch of little hoses and bags and stuff into the machine, cleaned and marked my arm. the twenty-something girl that was working with me was dressed generally in hospital type apparel, with a white lab coat on. that was disconcerting enough, but to add to that, she was wearing a big clear plastic mask, like a welders mask, but all clear. she told me to hold still (other than squeezing a tennis ball or something, to make the veins in my arm pop like those in so many gym teachers foreheads), and she inserted the giant turkey baster needle into my vein.
she turned the machine on, made sure everything was working ok, and then wandered away. now, im not entirely sure how it all worked, but apparently it was supposed to suck blood out of my body, whirr and bleep and shake a bit, take the plasma out of my blood in doing so, and spit the concentrated blood back into my arm. creepy, i know.
im not entirely sure how it did this, or what exactly was inside this box of a machine to cause it to do so, but im reasonably certain that it involved a fire that made the tea kettle steam, causing a fan to spin, which made the balloon rise to the top and pop on a needle, scaring the hamster into running in his wheel, until the rodeo clown needed to jump out of the way into his garbage can. i think so, anyway.
after about an hour, i was apparently done, and they drained a bag of saline into my vein, while taking away what appeared to be a tupperware container of pee. this was apparently my plasma. and they took a lot. it was the size and near shape of a half gallon of milk container. after the saline was done, they patted me on my head, gave me $20, set up an appointment for me for two days later, and kicked me out the door. easy money!
i continued to go twice a week for a few weeks. and then one day, not usin m'brain, as usual, i drank a big ole cup of coffee on my way over there. in the little 6x6 room, my pulse was too high. they checked it about 3 times, then made a nurse come and check it. too high. no good. they told me i couldnt donate that day (because of the lightning bolt zombies, you see). so i set up an appointment for the next day to try again.
i made damn sure i didnt drink any coffee, or have any sugar, or anything that might make my pulse rate shoot up. and in my panic and worry that i was going to screw up and have too high a pulse again, indeed it was too high.
this continued happening for two weeks. at this point there were only about 4 or 5 weeks of school left, and only about 2 1/2 until my art show. i needed that stinking money! i tried everything i could think of to get my pulse down. meditation, sleeping in the car before going in, reverse psychology, dining with manta rays, you name it. to no avail.
one day some dude recommended watching the people working at the desks while they were taking my pulse. apparently it worked for him. now, i didnt know what that was supposed to do, it made about as much sense to me as farting under water, but i was willing to try anything. so i intently focused on watching them move around and make appointments and answer the phones and whatnot, and somehow, miraculously, my pulse stayed down. so they led me to the back to get the work done. i was ecstatic.
the only bed that was not filled back there had the machine on the right instead of the left (in the past i had always gone on the left, i figured why not just keep stabbing the same arm). i didnt feel like having a tube of my blood going over my chest, so i told them to do the right arm. everything else was normal, right up until the girl got out the turkey baster. i squeezed the vein up, and she poked into it...
and my blood shot out of my vein and hit her mask, with an audible "splat", right about at eye level. she stopped and stared for a moment, and said something like "ive never seen that happen..." she finished stabbing my vein, and then called somebody else over to finish for her so she could go clean up. my blood. from the mask. a half inch from her eye.
i dont know how clearly this is coming across... im not sure if youre understanding how freaking weird that was... have you ever shot blood at somebodys face???
anyway, the machine ran, the kettle boiled and the balloon rose, and things seemed to be progressing otherwise as normal. feeling a bit sheepish, i read my book, trying to forget my projectile bleeding. one of the other techs was wandering around, making sure everything was progressing as normal, and he paused not far from me, and said "what the... uh oh."
i looked up at him and noticed that he was looking at the floor under my machine. i chanced to turn and look down at that which he was looking, and saw a growing puddle of my blood on the floor.
a growing puddle of my blood on the floor.
i stared in horror as my mind grappled with the concept that it was my blood that was flooding the floor, but it wasnt exactly coming out of me. it was draining from the machine. the instincutal animal part of my brain argued with the logical modernist part of my brain for what felt like long minutes.
apparently it wasnt the techs fault, or mine, or anything like that. the machine just malfunctioned. i think the rodeo clown forgot to dive out of the way, and the hamster got him. something like that.
it was no more blood lost than what would be donated in a regular blood donation. you know, except that it was on the floor.
they explained to me that it had to be counted as a whole blood donation, and i wouldnt be able to donate for 6 weeks. mind you, i only had about 4 left before i wouldnt even be living in town anymore. so they gave me $20, patted me on the head, and kicked me out.
damn rodeo clown...
during my last semester of college, i was living both the life of the starving college student and that of a starving artist simultaneously. i was earning enough through work to pay my rent and bills, but just barely so. i certainly wasnt making enough to fund the solo art exhibition that i had to put together in order to graduate.
one day between classes i noticed a short article in the school paper talking about a new blood plasma donation center that was put up in town. well, i dont remember if they called it a "donation" center or not, but it wasnt a donation thing, they paid you for it. according to the paper you would get $20 per visit, and $30 if you went a second time within a week.
damn, thats some good money, especially if all i have to do is bleed!
so i went to check it out. first they stabbed my finger tip with this little keychain looking torture devise, and the girl behind the desk siphoned the drop of blood that appeared through a clear coffee stirrer straw type thing with such skill and ease that i could almost feel gravity shake a fist-like boulder in anger somewhere in the distance.
then they ran me through the standard gamut of questions, like a regular donation (for those who have never done so, its things like do you have aids or hepatitis, have you ever shot heroin, vacationed in africa, had sex with other men, spent time in prison, have monkeys or cyborgs in your immediate family, etc.). they also asked if i had donated whole blood recently, because if i had, i wouldnt be able to donate/sell plasma for something like 6 weeks. i hadnt, i was good.
i passed as expected. then they stuck me in this little 6'x6' room with a desk and a couple of chairs, where they had somebody check my blood pressure and pulse to make sure both were in the proper range (if its too low, it takes too long for your blood to come out and makes the process all but impossible; if its too high, lightning bolts strike the building and the dead rise to eat the brains of the donors/sellers). i passed with no problems there either. i didnt expect a problem; i may be slightly overweight, but my blood pressure is fine and my pulse rate is healty.
after a short wait, they brought me over to the back of the building, where there were about 8 rows of these doctors office type reclined chair/bed things, with a big machine sitting next to each one, about 5 feet tall, seemingly a solid metal box, and the front of it looking like something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. i thought it was going to talk to me, but no such luck. they sat me down in the bed, and asked which arm.
the machine was on my left, so i chose left. they ran a bunch of little hoses and bags and stuff into the machine, cleaned and marked my arm. the twenty-something girl that was working with me was dressed generally in hospital type apparel, with a white lab coat on. that was disconcerting enough, but to add to that, she was wearing a big clear plastic mask, like a welders mask, but all clear. she told me to hold still (other than squeezing a tennis ball or something, to make the veins in my arm pop like those in so many gym teachers foreheads), and she inserted the giant turkey baster needle into my vein.
she turned the machine on, made sure everything was working ok, and then wandered away. now, im not entirely sure how it all worked, but apparently it was supposed to suck blood out of my body, whirr and bleep and shake a bit, take the plasma out of my blood in doing so, and spit the concentrated blood back into my arm. creepy, i know.
im not entirely sure how it did this, or what exactly was inside this box of a machine to cause it to do so, but im reasonably certain that it involved a fire that made the tea kettle steam, causing a fan to spin, which made the balloon rise to the top and pop on a needle, scaring the hamster into running in his wheel, until the rodeo clown needed to jump out of the way into his garbage can. i think so, anyway.
after about an hour, i was apparently done, and they drained a bag of saline into my vein, while taking away what appeared to be a tupperware container of pee. this was apparently my plasma. and they took a lot. it was the size and near shape of a half gallon of milk container. after the saline was done, they patted me on my head, gave me $20, set up an appointment for me for two days later, and kicked me out the door. easy money!
i continued to go twice a week for a few weeks. and then one day, not usin m'brain, as usual, i drank a big ole cup of coffee on my way over there. in the little 6x6 room, my pulse was too high. they checked it about 3 times, then made a nurse come and check it. too high. no good. they told me i couldnt donate that day (because of the lightning bolt zombies, you see). so i set up an appointment for the next day to try again.
i made damn sure i didnt drink any coffee, or have any sugar, or anything that might make my pulse rate shoot up. and in my panic and worry that i was going to screw up and have too high a pulse again, indeed it was too high.
this continued happening for two weeks. at this point there were only about 4 or 5 weeks of school left, and only about 2 1/2 until my art show. i needed that stinking money! i tried everything i could think of to get my pulse down. meditation, sleeping in the car before going in, reverse psychology, dining with manta rays, you name it. to no avail.
one day some dude recommended watching the people working at the desks while they were taking my pulse. apparently it worked for him. now, i didnt know what that was supposed to do, it made about as much sense to me as farting under water, but i was willing to try anything. so i intently focused on watching them move around and make appointments and answer the phones and whatnot, and somehow, miraculously, my pulse stayed down. so they led me to the back to get the work done. i was ecstatic.
the only bed that was not filled back there had the machine on the right instead of the left (in the past i had always gone on the left, i figured why not just keep stabbing the same arm). i didnt feel like having a tube of my blood going over my chest, so i told them to do the right arm. everything else was normal, right up until the girl got out the turkey baster. i squeezed the vein up, and she poked into it...
and my blood shot out of my vein and hit her mask, with an audible "splat", right about at eye level. she stopped and stared for a moment, and said something like "ive never seen that happen..." she finished stabbing my vein, and then called somebody else over to finish for her so she could go clean up. my blood. from the mask. a half inch from her eye.
i dont know how clearly this is coming across... im not sure if youre understanding how freaking weird that was... have you ever shot blood at somebodys face???
anyway, the machine ran, the kettle boiled and the balloon rose, and things seemed to be progressing otherwise as normal. feeling a bit sheepish, i read my book, trying to forget my projectile bleeding. one of the other techs was wandering around, making sure everything was progressing as normal, and he paused not far from me, and said "what the... uh oh."
i looked up at him and noticed that he was looking at the floor under my machine. i chanced to turn and look down at that which he was looking, and saw a growing puddle of my blood on the floor.
a growing puddle of my blood on the floor.
i stared in horror as my mind grappled with the concept that it was my blood that was flooding the floor, but it wasnt exactly coming out of me. it was draining from the machine. the instincutal animal part of my brain argued with the logical modernist part of my brain for what felt like long minutes.
apparently it wasnt the techs fault, or mine, or anything like that. the machine just malfunctioned. i think the rodeo clown forgot to dive out of the way, and the hamster got him. something like that.
it was no more blood lost than what would be donated in a regular blood donation. you know, except that it was on the floor.
they explained to me that it had to be counted as a whole blood donation, and i wouldnt be able to donate for 6 weeks. mind you, i only had about 4 left before i wouldnt even be living in town anymore. so they gave me $20, patted me on the head, and kicked me out.
damn rodeo clown...
posted by The EYE at 3:36 PM
2 Comments:
I lived off that money for over a year while we saved for the house. But I never had that experience. I liked the way they phrased: 'If you are a man, who has had sex with another man, even once, since 1977.'
You've been tagged - see my blog for details!
Post a Comment
<< Home