The Hardest Earned $30 of My Life!!!

The following post deals with gross subject matter not suitable for the faint of heart.  It contains scenes of needle pricking/moving, fainting, and vomiting. Reader discretion is advised... you have been warned.

This is what the plasma set up
looks like...

    Donating Plasma: even just reading those two words I'm sure you have already heard someone's horror story about it.  But you know what? For every sickening and gut-wrenching tale out there, there are a dozen people who have no problem doing it.  In fact they can make pretty good money doing it.  If you could go twice a week, you could easily earn about $300 a month for sitting for two hours watching a movie. This was my master plan.  It would pay more than my current job and I would consider myself pretty apt at movie watching.  
    Even the needles don't bother me.  In my physiology class we prick ourselves all the time to draw blood and I have no problems with that, in fact, I volunteer to be the guinea pig all the time.  My dreams were big and I had all sorts of ideas on how I'd spend my extra money... but that wasn't until....     

    Friday. I had spent most the week before just trying to get an appointment with Talecris Plasma Donation Center. They're phones were off the hook busy and once you get on with them they only plan out a week in advance (which by this time was filled so I'd have to call back again next week [sigh]). So I finally got my appointment, found the elusive social security card and license and was on my way.  They warn you to eat a full meal and drink a lot before donating, but C and I hadn't been shopping for six weeks and I didn't want to spend any more money so I thought I'd be fine on crackers and peanut butter.  I drank a lot though, that whole day I think I had to go to the bathroom every hour. 

   The plasma center was a lot smaller than I had imagined it.  People of all sorts are crammed in there awaiting their blood-draining-sessions. I'll admit I was a little nervous for the unknown but I was getting my money. Going up to the front desk they took my cards and told me to put my hands under the black light.  I did so and she looked at me and told me that I'd have to take off my nail polish.  I asked her why because I had painted my nails so perfectly the previous night (and when that happens every so often the last thing you want to do it take it back off again!) She told me that they mark your nails with a special pen so that you don't go around donating to different centers all the time.  I looked at her in my most innocent look telling her that I had never donated before and couldn't they just trust me because by the time I get the polish off I'll miss the appointment and goodness knows how easy it'll be to get another one! Like the professional she was, she smiled and told me she was sorry.  Then she turned away.  

   I was so ticked... so I decided to call C and go on home.  However, he wasn't answering his phone so I was stuck for an hour in the cramped waiting room watching "Avatar".  Finally genius stuck and I ran over to the nearest Walgreens and purchased nail polish remover, cotton balls and some more nail polish just in case I wanted to put it back on after they checked my nails. C finally called back but I was already taking someone else's appointment in ten minutes. 

Mad Cow :)

  The physical took forever... they ask you all sorts of odd questions about if you've ever had sex with someone who had sex with someone of the same gender after 1977, or if you've ever lived in England for more than three years before 1990, or if you have mad cow disease.  For about two hours I endured these questions, a finger prick and other long-drawn out questions.  Finally I was determined fit and qualified to donate.

    The actual room where you donate is a large and spacious full of these shallow candy cane shaped chairs where at least fifty people are hooked up to the blood-sucking plasma-injecting machines.  TVs are strapped to every wall and in-between on pillars playing all sorts of fun movies. A young female nurse grabbed my charts and put me in a chair against the wall.  She took one look at my veins and freaked... I guess they were pretty tiny.  (Didn't help that I was hungry or that they keep the room cold for better plasma storing conditions) She grabbed a more experienced nurse who also goggled at my tiny veins (of which I was getting pretty self-concious about by now). She turned on the cuff which put a lot of pressure on my arm and gave me a stress ball of which I would pump quickly to enlarge my veins. With my head turned away she stuck the 8mm syringe into the arm, and then said the last thing you ever want to hear when someone's poking you with a needle... "Shoot!"

   My vein had rolled so she started to chase it. Jackknifing the needle around she tries to poke the vein again! Miss! Then she pulls a 180... miss! For the next fifteen minutes I endure her painfully pushing and pulling the needle. She gives up on that arm and decides to torture the next arm. My right arm's better anyways because its veins are bigger because I'm right handed.  She was so excited about this and after only a few minutes of tugging and pinching, we finally got blood flow into the tube.  

      I sat there for about forty minutes painfully squeezing my stress ball, trying to watch "Confessions of a Shopaholic". However, every time I squeezed the ball I felt like the pin was moving, and when I looked down I could see the pin moving in and out of my vein. It was truly painful, and I decided now wouldn't be a bad time to just close my eyes and take a little nap... Just few minutes later a nurse wearing a worried look on her face was tapping me awake asking me what had happened.  My head was in my lap and the needle had jack knifed again and was coming out.  Sweat began pouring down my face even though I was freezing and I felt nauseous.  I was angry she had waken me up from such a peaceful nap and started to "fall asleep" again. Other nurses started coming over and telling me to stay awake and drink water.  A new nurse was trying to get the needle back in my sore arm which was by no means a pleasant feeling, while the other nurses were asking me if I knew what day it was or if I knew who the President was.  All I could think and say was I didn't feel good and I don't know why.  

    When the needle had moved it had cut off my circulation for a moment and with a combination of other extraneous factors, had sent my body into shock.  Brains are top priority and don't take blood loss very well, so they shut down and tell the body to lie down to get the blood flowing easier to the head when the blood pressure drops too much. 

   The other nurse couldn't get the needle back in which although relieved the pain there caused another problem. When you donate plasma you donate twice as much blood as you do when you do your normal blood donation.  The reason they can get away with doing this though is because they put the fake plasma (Saline) back into you which helps the body to recover.  However, since they couldn't get the needle back in, they couldn't put the plasma back into me either.  I took a double whammy then, losing two pints of blood/plasma.  

My thoughts exactly..

   After an hour after taking out the needle my blood pressure was still really low and I could barely sit up without feeling nauseous or light headed.  The body is truly amazing at protecting itself from harm, however, sometimes its truly scary not to be able to do things you're normally able to do because your body needs to recover.  The RN was a little nervous that I wasn't getting any better even after three bottles of water and a dry granola bar, so she decided to try and give me an injection of saline. Problem was I was so cold and blood pressure so low that my "little veins" if possible, were even smaller.  She grabbed the Center's paramedic who wrapped my arms in rubber bands and hit my veins trying to make them bigger so they could inject saline into me to help my body recover.

     By this time it had been about five hours since I had gotten there and C was starting to get nervous. Thing is you can't use cell phones when you donate because they're signals mess with the machines. I asked the RN to call C and he quickly came to see what was up. This man can do it all, he can fix anything, learn anything and anything he puts his mind to turns out incredibly, he truly is my superman. However every superman has his kryptonite, and C's is needles. He is probably the most delicate person I've ever met around needles. Even just the thought of needles makes him woozy and any time he goes to get a shot, he just has to lay down because no questions asked, he'll pass out.

      C arrived at my bedside and quickly assessed that I wasn't doing too hot. I warned him the paramedic was going to give me an IV of saline and C decided it would be a good time take a "water break". I didn't know this at the time, but he later filled me in that he didn't make it too far before the tunnel vision started. Luckily he made it to the drinking fountain and had time to collapse into a chair.  

      While C was gone the paramedic pricked my hand, but as he started to inject the saline I saw a tiny bubble start to grow on my hand.  The paramedic sighed frustratedly and soaked up the saline that my tiny veins had rejected because they were so constricted. By this time the RN and paramedic were really beginning to worry and knew what they would have to do.  Apparently it happens only a few times a year, but they had to call 9-1-1.  

    Upon hearing this, I got really nervous.  I was supposed to drive to my parents home in Boise that night with my $30, not go to the emergency room! As we heard the sirens drive by to come pick me up, I lost it... and all three bottles of water too. But amazingly after that, I actually felt a lot better.

      In rush the six firemen/EMTs in their big uniforms with their big emergency kits.  Everyone in the center by this time are freaked out because they see these big official looking men rushing in to save a dying plasma donor. I do have a great appreciation for them now though.  They were so professional and thorough, and didn't joke about the situation.  I felt like I could really trust them and that I would be taken care of.  They told me that I could go to the ER but it would cost about $300 or go home and just stick it out.  I chose the obvious answer, and after collecting my well-earned $30 they helped me out to our car.  

     Needless to say we didn't head to Boise that night.  Instead we ate Panda Express (very slowly) and drank delicious juices and watched the newer Batman series. C was the best nurse anyone could ask for and I'll admit it now, I juiced it for what it was worth... I mean its not everyday you almost die donating plasma:) 

   Lesson learned: sometimes $30 just isn't worth it. 

This is how we spent the next week :)
"Life isn't worth living, unless it is lived for someone else."
— Albert Einstein