From the moment the needle pierced my skin I can tell that I am off for a ride. I was waiting expectantly for my blood to flow out of me naturally, but a second, two seconds passed, nothing happened. Hei !! I thought blood is red, well that is what I grow up believing in, my the tube that is now dangling lazily at the end of the needle which is in me seems empty. Has my blood turned white out of fear? At least my face is. I soon realised that something is wrong. If the stoic face of the nurse did not give away the slightest sign of problem, her voice does. She was helplessly looking for my vein and turning the needle around in a futile attempt to locate my veins. As if the whole universe decides to play a cruel joke on me, my veins decides not to appear itself or make itself apparent. She quickly called for an attending doctor, a young guy whose youthful face betrays his skills. He took over the needle or what is left of it from the nurse and tried the same tactics as the nurse did only this time worst. He probe my veins with an effort as if I am non existence, a lifeless corpse that is lying on the operating table for him to experiment on. If I thought that the nurse was cruel, I was 'dead' wrong when I was under him. He took off the needle and jabbed it up again into me merciless and this was repeated numerous time. It seems like an eternity to me. At the very last moment that I couldn't take it anymore and was just about to yank my hand away, miraculously blood flow down my veins into the tube of life. I looked like a junkie for the next few days with the marks and bruises. But nevertheless I am proud of it.
The harrowing experience that I had almost a decade ago has long past. I am now longer quivered by the thought of donating blood and I have 11 times of experience to proof it. I supposed as the old adage goes, take a leap of faith, and that is precisely what I did whenever I sat myself on the donating bed to subject myself under the tender care and mercy of the nurse. Though I cannot say that I am an avid loyal donor unlike many others in the National Blood Centre Hall of Fame, I guess I am proud in my own reserved way for having the courage to go through the experience.
When I visited the Blood Centre I was asked by the nurse if I would like to donate just platelets and plasma via a process called apheresis. The nurse explained to me that they hook you up to a machine that takes the blood, centrifuges it, removes the platelets and most of the plasma and then gives you back everything else. . I cringed. "Oh, no," I said. "You can just have a whole pint." They gave me a health questionnaire to fill out. I sat down and began circling Y's and N's.
When I had completed the survey, I only had to wait a few minutes before a nurse called my name and we went into a screening room. We went over my answers while she took notes clarifying the Y's and N's. Things like where I've traveled in the last three years and what sorts of medications I take. Then she proceeded to the mini-physical. She took my pulse (a little high, I was nervous), my blood pressure (good.), my temperature (normal) and my weight (oh yeah I gain 2 kilos), and then she pricked my finger to do the hematocrit (just north of 38). I was going to be able to donate blood.
I walked into another room where I was greeted by another nurse. She directed me to an available bed and directed my to sit on it. She walked towards me, a pleasant looking young lady and commit small talk. She grabbed a bag from under the bed and start looking for a vein. I have always had this problem of running veins where my veins would just refused to sit still. When she found one she marked it with a felt tip pen. She washed my arm and painted an iodine circle over the vein. "That's my bulls eye," she said. My nurse excused herself to go get the needle and wash her hands. I nervously examined the chair. My eyes got wide as the nurse returned. Maybe it was just my perspective, but the needle looked huge.
The nurse pulled on latex gloves and I stared at the needle. It was hollow, only sharp and pointy at the bottom, tapering away into smoothness. I felt like I could just fall into the black hole in the center of the needle. I took a deep breath, trying to relax. The nurse tightened the blood pressure cuff and amazed me as she slid the needle without preamble into my vein. She aimed for the target and missed. My veins acted out again. She hesitantly aimed again and misses. Feeling desperate, she called for assistance, short of shouting for it. Another staff came over with a smile on her face and went over the needle. She pulled it out, aimed and pushed, burgundy, almost brown blood rushed into the tube and poured in a controlled line down my arm and over my wrist into the bag near the floor. The bag laid on a seesaw machine which rocked it back and forth, mixing the blood with a preservative.
I squeezed the grip the nurse gave me, the finger prick bleeding all over its casing. The magazine that I had brought along to pass my time and distract my attention was open, but I only read about a paragraph. Instead, I preferred to watch the gush of red leaving my body. "I know I shouldn't be surprised about this," I said. "But, its warm where the tube is touching my arm." The nurse smiled, "That's just your body temperature. It's a little cold in here." Less than ten minutes elapsed when the machine that was "sweshswashing" my blood beep and a continuous loud tone. It almost made me jump from my bed expecting blood to have had overflowed on the floor. The nurse came over and smiled again. She bend over and off the machine. "It is done" she says. I was almost surprised at the speed of it. I don't remember it being this fast. She spoke again. "Okay, now I'm going to take your samples." She put a knot in the tube leading from my arm into the bag and then she filled several little vials with more blood. She slid the needle out of my arm as effortlessly as she'd put it in. Taking out a tray I had my choice of bandages. I went with ridiculous, neon blue.
As the nurse wrapped my arm she asked how I was feeling. "Fine," I said, a little surprised. I had thought, surely losing some blood would make me feel light-headed or a little grossed out. I felt neither. She then passed me a beverage coupon and asked me to drink lots of water and refrain from physical activities. I stood, walked and left the room to the beverage counter where I got my choice of juice and snack. The juice was a no-brainer (soya bean), but the choice of snack was a bit more difficult. After reading all the labels like the health freak I am, I finally settled on plain doughnut.
Its estimated that every three seconds someone needs blood and Singapore needs about 350 units of blood daily. I flipped through the literature on the table and read that one pint often helps more than one person, someone gets your plasma and someone gets the other junk. Blood is needed during bone marrow transplants for leukaemia patients, for thalasemia patients needing regular blood transfusions, during daily surgeries and for accident victims. This is only a short list of its uses.
This makes me feel good. I was just helpful and I really didn't have to do anything. I had to sit in a chair and let someone stick a needle in me. It seemed like even less of a big deal as I ate my doughnut and drank my soya bean. As I walked in, into the room there were five others giving when we arrived. A young guy was leaving as I came in and another elderly Chinese man came in while I was finishing up donating. They must have a steady stream most days of people wandering in, giving blood, eating beverages and then leaving. But, even so, I bet the Centre always wish they had a few more donors every month. Every 12 weeks you are eligible to give blood. Its every eight weeks for platelets. I got out my calendar and wrote down a reminder eight weeks down the line. Next time, I'll have to try to not be so chicken and just give the plasma.
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