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10/13/2004: "Lying Eyes"

We had a blood drive at our office today. I’ve always been a ‘convenience blood donor.’ If I am somewhere, or affiliated with some organization that brings the bus to me, then I always give, but I haven’t been really good at making time in my schedule to seek out the blood donation units. So I was happy to sign up to ‘give at the office” today.

When I got to the triage area, they asked if I would be willing to give Double Red Blood Cells. I inquired into what the process entailed and they informed me that ‘it makes you feel like a Popsicle.’ Heck yeah! I signed up immediately!

So the process still only involves one needle, one arm, but they hook you up to a machine that first pulls blood, then separates your red blood cells from your plasma. Then it pushes your plasma and some saline (at room temperature) back into your arm. Finally it repeats this entire process one more time. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

Now I know that one of the Four Agreements is “Don’t make assumptions”, but somehow when they said Popsicle I thought I would end up feeling thoroughly licked, sucked, drippy and sticky all over. Hey, if helping others can make you feel that good, then I’m all for it. But instead I left feeling a bit frozen from the inside out and like I just had a stick in me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d do it again and most likely will in the future, but that is the second time this week that I found myself wondering; “Whatever happened to truth in advertising”?

Replies: 3 Comments

Stick to your feelings. Do they still do that popsicle thing? I forgot. Is frozen better? The freezer is too high. And, I think it would hurt.

rayrangutan said @ 10/13/2004 03:25 PM CST

Ya did a good deed and that would warm me up pretty quick!
How long were you chilly anyway?

Turtle said @ 10/13/2004 04:40 PM CST

Yah turtle, that's how I look at it too. I was only chilly for about 1/2 hour. But I thought, "hey, I need to do this next August!" *smirk*

I said @ 10/13/2004 05:12 PM CST