Warning: graphic descriptions ahead.
By Adam Murphy
In my pursuit of information about blood drives, the medical staff of the Stanford donation bus lassoed me into giving blood.
After agreeing to give blood, I filled out the necessary paperwork and undertook the necessary medical tests.
People were being shuffled in and out the whole time, completing the necessary paperwork in the front of the bus, giving blood in the middle of the bus and filling up on cookies and orange juice in the rear section of the bus.
The blood hauler, which made me feel claustrophobic, was so full of people that it took some serious maneuvering to get through the aisles, and the low ceiling meant I had to stoop to avoid hitting my head.
After I took a seat, the medical aides went over the standard procedures involved as they set everything up.
The veins on my arms looked like gutters about to burst with the blood being forced down into my hand when they wrapped on a blood pressure monitor.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw the needle: It looked like a sharpened PVC pipe.
The extra large-sized needle entered my flesh with a little sting, not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now I could just sit back and relax.
I closed my eyes and started to daydream, thinking about the rest of my weekend. My dreams were cut short by simple, “uh-oh,” coming from the lips of a medical aide.
A large bump had formed on my arm because I was having a reaction to the needle, and my body was sending platelets to the area of entry, trying to stop the blood flow.
The needle was extracted from my arm harshly, and then the blood started flowing.
My good intention was leaking down my arm and onto the floor, despite the best efforts from the medial aides.
My arm kept bleeding, mixing with the iodine to give my blood a gold tint as it coated the arm of the chair. After some serious pressure the bleeding stopped.
“Do you want to give with the other arm?” a voice said somewhere behind me.
My mind screamed, “No!” But I was already in the bus, so I relented and begrudgingly stuck out my other arm for Round 2.
Same procedure — except this time they used a different needle that might spray my blood, so the medical aide had to wear a transparent face mask. Very reassuring.
Despite my apprehension, the needle found its mark without spewing blood over the whole bus. The medical aide’s aim was true, and my arm didn’t have the reaction it had the first time, so I sat back, closed my eyes, and did my part for the greater good.
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