neverbeencool

Like I mentioned a few days ago, I’ll be flying out to Texas next Monday for a week of work-related crap. Unfortunately, that means I have to spend this week trying to catch up on all those little prep tasks I need to complete before leaving on a jet plane. Doesn’t leave much time for blogging.

So that leaves me with two choices:

1. Not post this week. Definitely the simpler of the two options, but I know the results could be catastrophic. For instance, I didn’t post the weeks that the Watts Riots, LA riots in 1992, or the Holocaust started. Draw your own conclusions.
2. Recycle old posts. A little work, dusting off posts from my old blog and updating them a little to fit in here, but YOU are worth it. True, recycling means I have to temporarily call off my war on the environment, but I’m so clearly winning that it’s pretty much a moot point.

If you read the title, you know which route we’re going. Enjoy. Or don’t. I don’t care.

A few years ago, during the 18 months or so I spent vacationing from real life, I lived completely on the kindness of friends. No job, no home, no money. Nothing but extremely generous friends and associates. They fed me, loaned me their floors and couches, clothed me…

I know what you’re thinking… “Why didn’t you get off your ass, fatty, and get a fucking job?” Fair question, but the answer’s a topic for another day. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just say that I would have loved to work, but working a regular job wasn’t an option at that point.

Obviously, I needed some cash. Couldn’t expect these people, people who weren’t exactly well off themselves, to pay for my every little need without contributing in some way. I worked the occasional odd, under-the-table job, but those were too few and far between to count on. The only consistent option? Donating plasma (see? finally tying this in to the whole blood thing…).

The plasma center was in a older, broken down brick building about two miles away from the place I stayed at most often. Twice a week, I’d psyche myself up for the two to three hour life-sucking process. If I had anything left over from the previous go ’round, I could hop the bus down. If not, well, I’d need to hit the pavement early… few things worse than walking a couple miles in the heat and a pint low, so I preferred to get it over with the before the warmer parts of the day.

Donating plasma is a little different from the blood donation process most people are familiar with. For instance, instead of just sucking out a pint of blood and pointing you to the cookies and juice, the phlebotomist at the plasma center straps you in for an hour long adventure until you’ve been drained of some amount of life-giving fluid determined by your body weight. Oh, joy! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m betting that very few of you have had the pleasure of experiencing the plasma donation process, so I’d be remiss if I skipped any of the bloody (ha! Bloody…) details.

As mentioned, when you donate blood, they typically take about one pint of fluid and call it a day. Plasma, however, is merely one component of whole blood, so they need some way to separate the stuff they want from the stuff they don’t. Enter the centrifuge.

After they stick you with a needle that looks about 14 times larger than the typically blood-donation variety, they hook the other end up to a formidable looking machine next to your bed. They turn on the machine and out goes your blood. Much like donating blood, you’re told to repeatedly squeeze your fist during this part of the cycle.

After the machine detects that it’s full, the centrifuge starts a-spinnin’, separating plasma from the rest of the blood. The plasma is then diverted into another receptacle attached to the machine and, once enough of the stuff is removed, the remaining goods are pumped back into your body. In my case, each cycle would usually net about 1/4 of the plasma they expected to safely extract from someone of my weight (about 180 pounds at the time), so I could usually expect a long day. From sign in to pay out, a session might last about 3 hours if they were somewhat busy.

The room that housed the machines and beds looked like something out of The Matrix. Remember the fields of people with cables sticking out of them used to power the machines in that post-apocalyptic vision of our future? Well, replace Keanu with about 15 homeless guys and you’ve got a pretty good visual of the clinic.

Most of the people working there were nice enough, and a couple were very good with the needles. You got to know the good ones from the rest pretty quickly and prayed that you’d be stuck by one of them every time. A good phlebotomist could hook you up with only the tiniest prick. The bad? Well…

During one particularly painful visit, I ended up with a noob. I have fairly large and visible veins, so rarely did even the newest neophyte have to take more than a couple of stabs at me. This one particular person defied those odds.

After jamming the needle in my arm and starting the machine, I noticed that my arm was stinging a little more than usual. “No bid deal,” I thought. “Just a fluke. Must have stabbed through some scar tissue from a previous visit.”

The machine churned away and drew the requisite amount of blood. It spun and spun and I watched the bag begin to fill with my Tang-colored plasma. Nothing too far out of the ordinary, at least not until the second half of the cycle kicked off.

When the machine started to pump the remaining blood back into my arm, I quickly realized something was wrong. Normally, that part of the process was painless. Sure, there’d be an odd tingling perhaps, but it didn’t even sting. That day? It hurt.

The source of the pain became pretty clear when I looked at the spot in my arm where the needle was inserted. The skin on the inside of my elbow was starting to bulge. Slowly, I saw the flesh begin to expand more and more, as though someone had inserted a balloon under the skin.

“Um, excuse me…” I said. “I don’t think this is quite right…” One of the women in the white lab coats gave me a glance that showed precisely how little she cared, but she nonetheless walked over to my bed. When she saw the now tennis ball-sized lump forming, she changed her tune.

The first worker hadn’t quite hit the mark. Instead of pumping blood directly back into my vein, the machine was forcing it under my skin. Thankfully, the lump didn’t last long, disappearing completely within a few minutes. It did leave a small reminder, though: a 10 inch long bruise stretching along half my forearm, through the inside of the elbow, and a few inches up the biceps.

Of course, even having gone through that much I had to stick out the rest of the process if I wanted my fifteen bucks for the day.