First Blood

Yesterday, the Red Cross volunteers came to Brigham Young University. They were looking for fresh blood.

Voluntarily, I took my seat among the other victims, waiting for my turn to arrive. After a few short moments, I was summoned and the interrogation began. Question after question was thrown at me.

Have you ever spent this much time in this country? Have you ever spent a shorter amount of time in this other country?

Have you ever had sex with this type of person? What about this other type? Or maybe this one?

Have you ever stood on your head for over an hour? Two hours?

When the bombardment had come to an end, my finger was pricked to check for anemia. After squeezing my finger repeatedly for several seconds, a drop finally seeped out of the thin cut. (This is a literary technique called foreshadowing.) Turns out I'm not anemic and so I was ushered to the final wait.

As much as I enjoyed watching other donor's blood moving through tubes and into bags, I was relieved when my turn to be "stuck" arrived. After examining my arms, the nurse posed a question.

"Have you drunk much water today?" (See, this is more foreshadowing.)

"Not really," I replied shortly.

"Have you eaten?"

"Oh yeah. Definitely." I started squeezing the foam ball with more vigor.

Then out came the iodine, followed by the needle.

The nurse uttered some memorized phrase about iodine stinging, followed by, "Go to your happy place." The beach was too far away, so I turned my head to watch.

In went the needle. My blood decided not to cooperate and so the nurse did some wiggling. Wiggle, wiggle. The blood still refused to leave.

"Are you alright?"

"Yep."

Wiggle, wiggle.

"Are you alright?"

"Yep."

This pattern continued for about a minute and a half until I was kindly informed that I would not be able to give blood that day.

She did, however, inform me I could try again tomorrow. At least she had a sense of humor.