Bloodsuckers

I know I'm a nurse, but I still am a needle-phobe when it comes to needles puncturing my intact skin. We have that nice barrier for our sack of organs for a reason, you know? After serious debate, though, I decided to donate blood here. They're in desperate need of type B, and I'm O+ so I told myself the chances are low they'll need my sanguinous fluid. And then lab called when I was desperately ill. I admit, I told them I needed all the blood I could get and would like to pass on donating at that time.

So when I got a note on my door today from lab asking me to come in for donor testing, two thoughts came to mind. One- maybe since I had declined because of being sick, they had to retest my blood or tell me I couldn't donate again. Or two- what if my blood test results came back with something like the hep (no thanks to Ali for that paranoia!). Not that I can recall any exposure, it's just that nurses statistically have a high rate of hepatitis.

Fortunately it just turns out that they not only screen our blood, but mix portions of it with potential recipients to watch for certain reactions. After three weeks or so, the donor's blood must be pitched and fresh stuff drawn. So it sounds like I'll lose about fifteen cc's of blood every month or so. But that's not the part that scares me- it's the purported use of a fourteen gauge needle for the actual donation that gets my little heart a-pounding!