It's Been Such A Long Time...

I have an almost pathological fear of needles. I can't stand the sight of them, whether they're intended for me or for someone else. I don't know where or when I developed this phobia, but they make me cringe. Once, when I had surgery on my ankle back in 1998, the nurse put an IV in me...and left the needle uncovered! I had to ask her to put a bandage or something over it, because the sight of the needle poking into my hand was creeping me out.

Anyway, I hate needles. This is part of the reason I donate blood. I do it to prove to myself that I can.

It's been a while, though. There was a time when I donated every eight or nine weeks, which is as often as they let you do it.^† I donated fairly regularly when I was at Weber State, and also when I was at BYU.^‡ And we have regular blood drives here in our Stake. Alas, the Stake blood drives almost always run from 3:00 to 8:00 p.m., which was right in the middle of my work schedule at the call center. Since I no longer work there, however, I was able to make it to the blood drive this past Thursday.

I had a really interesting experience on Thursday night. I'd read the donor information card and filled out the paperwork and was being interviewed by one of the workers. After getting my name and date of birth, she told me the address they had on file for me. It was old. It took me a minute to figure out where it was. It was, in fact, the address of the first apartment where Practice Wife and I had lived after we got married. That means that the last time they had me on record for giving blood was probably 2002, or maybe 2003.

I was discussing this with Nancy, and she said she was sure I'd given blood since we got married. I remembered that, after thinking back for a while. It must have been a Red Cross blood drive. Most of the blood drives here are conducted by ARUP, a local lab owned and operated by the University of Utah. That's all I can figure.

Either way, it's been too long. I need to get back into the habit of donating, partly for my own benefit and partly because there's always a need. The folks running the drive thanked me several times for coming in. They also said that blood supplies were lower than usual right now.

So let me recommend blood donation to my reader(s), as well. If you can, or if you've ever thought about it, give a pint of blood sometime soon.

Donating blood: so easy, even I can do it.

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^† I also used to 'donate' plasma twice a week, but that was more of a financial thing. I finally gave it up when I started to feel it was too much like prostitution...you know, selling my body for money, that sort of thing.

^‡ There was one time I went in to donate blood at BYU, and it went badly. It hurt a lot more than usual, and the bag wasn't filling very quickly at all. It turned out that the phlebotomist had inadvertently stuck the needle all the way through the vein. So the only thing to do was for them to take the needle out and put it in my other arm to finish the donation. I left that day with bandages and wraps on both arms. And went directly to marching band practice for the next three hours. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. I got a really nice bruise on my (first) arm to show for it, though.