9.28.2012

i donated plasma today, like a poor person


So a couple of weeks ago I got this FANTASTIC idea that I wanted to buy a ton of new clothes. Reason 1: All my old clothes are ugly. Reason 2: Given a recent drop in lb's, lots of them are getting baggy. Baggy=frumpy. 3: I just want new clothes.
Now, such a grand notion is a little harder to actually make happen when you just have had a "budget meeting" with your husband that lasted almost an hour. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally glad we did it (and so is our bank account). It also means I can't spend as frivolously as I apparently was. BOO. In the budget we gave ourselves a monthly allowance to spend on ourselves or whatever we wanted, no questions asked (well, depending on what shows up on the bank statements, questions may be asked, but you get the idea). I decided to beef up that allowance, I would do what many a poor college student do- DONATE PLASMA! 

To a full time teacher and mom, this sounded WONDERFUL. You mean I just sit there, uninterrupted and get PAID for it?! Sign me up! 
 
So Wednesday, I head over to the plasma place and get in line. Literally. I was there for almost 2 1/2 hours and I hadn't even started donating yet (orientations, physicals, blah blah blah). So I opted to come back another day to finish- which was today. 
So starting up wasn't bad. Needles don't bother me at all. When your Dad is an ER doc and you've grown up hearing the nastiest stories quite possibly to have ever existed in a hospital, needles are like pffttt...THAT tiny silver thing? I've watched my Dad stitch up my hand at home on the kitchen counter, while eating a bowl of cereal with the other hand. No biggie. 

Also, after you have a baby I'm convinced you can do anything, any time, any place and hardly be phased. I AM WOMAN; HEAR ME ROAR!

So yeah, plasma? We got this.

As soon as the machine started pumping away and the little tube filled up with blood, DRAIN went the blood from my face. Crap. I supposed that was normal. But about 10-15 minutes into it, I was feeling pretty rough. So I called a girl over and asked her if it was normal to feel really sleepy. She said yeah, a little. Then I started thinking, man, if you were to die by bleeding out, that wouldn't be so bad- you just go to sleep! Then I realized...wait...that's how I feel...CRAP! Within a minute I got super nauseated. I was moments away from leaning over my blood-drained arm to spew all over the ugly linoleum floor. So one girl started to fan my face, they propped up my legs and gave me some water. That was embarrassing. I was surrounded by college guys who probably go in twice a week and are in and outta there in half an hour. But there I was, not knowing if I would throw up and then pass out, or pass out then throw up- hoping it wasn't the later, for fear of not recovering from such events in that order.

In a few minutes I was feeling better, so I decided to try to tough it out to the end. I've pushed a HUMAN BEING out of a 10 CM HOLE. THIS IS NOTHING, WHITNEY! Fortunately, the rest of the session wasn't bad, but I was ready to get my cash and get outta there. 

The only thing that made it less embarrassing was when a girl came in next to me and they had to stick her like 3 times to get a good vein, and she was almost to the point of tears and decided not to even do it. 

Whew. So I can't say yet if this will be a regular thing for me or not, I guess we'll see how desperate I get for super cute boots this fall. 

Time to go shopping.

1 comment:

  1. I donated plasma twice. The first time was fine. The second time they put the needle through my vein. The blood was coming out so slow, so the girl thought that moving the needle around would help. That just twisted my vein, which felt like needles in my entire arm. I started to get nauseous and was going to pass out. They propped my feet up and gave me some juice. A guy came over and decided to just put my blood back in. The blood went back into my arm not the vein. My whole arm was bruised for a month you can check out my old profile pictures. I never went back!

    ReplyDelete

Leave some love.