I just gave blood. It's been a while since I did--I think the last time was when we had a blood drive here at work. Which was the worst. I had been a pretty regular donor up to that point, but the setup and service was so atrocious that I gave up donating for a while. In the past, they usually brought some really nice portable contour chairs and a bunch of cool t-shirts and a really hot looking Philipina RN/vampire wrangler who made sure stuff ran smoothly. The last time I gave at work, though, someone dropped the ball and brought crappy narrow flat tables and a crew of the surliest venapuncturists who ever mangled a vein.

As I have noted in the past, compared to most people I am a 64-ring Presidente to their Virginia Slim, so for me, reclining on the little narrow tables was about like trying to balance on a fence rail. If I could have balanced evenly, that is--the fence rails were pushed all the way against the wall (nice hard, cold marble) and so I was forced up into a sort of semi-sideways squintch with my bleeding arm pinned underneath me. And since no one brought any sort of head cushions and the tables were flatter than...well, tables, my freakishly large head was forced to support itself with my dainty neck muscles. When this got to be too much, it had to rest itself on the metal edge of the table, since the tables were length, as well as width, deficient. Luckily, the misery of trying to keep from rolling onto the terrazzo floor was mitigated by throbbing arm pain, brought on by my delicate attendant (who outweighed me a good 50 pounds) who decided that the best way to insure good blood flow was to jam a tree root into my arm and twist it vigorously. (Not really--I do tend to exaggerate--it was only a length of 1/4 inch black iron pipe and she only twisted it a little.) She wandered off and talked to her friend and left me to try and ponder why I was being punished. After being released from my little ritual, I was a bit put off about the prospect of doing THAT again.

But, today was much different. They called me, and I got to go to their new donation center up on Red Mountain, which has a beautiful view toward downtown, and they have the REALLY nice permanent chairs with arms and pillows, and they had the Food Channel on the TV, and stacks of Fig Newtons, and the they have started using much tinier steel pipes to shove in your arm, and my nurse stood beside the chair and watched TV with me while I percolated. Which is all much less interesting than the horror story, but at least now I will feel better when they call back again.
posted by Terry at 2:33:00 PM