What I'm doing today

By a fortunate coincidence, this is my platelet donation day. It's as important to donate  a few days after a disaster as it is at the time, because things like the Marathon bombing draw down blood supplies dramatically. That's especially true of platelets, which have a shelf life of just five days. One unit of platelets can do the work of six units of whole blood, which makes them useful little buggers.

About 11 percent of the American population is eligible to donate blood, but only three percent do so, and many of them don't do so regularly. That's why blood supply runs short of demand even in good times.

If you are eligible to give blood, and don't, you'll find most regular donors tolerant of the reasons you don't. I'm not one of them. That's due half to my native impatience, and half to experience. If you'd ever seen a Navy Corpsman lying down to give two units of whole blood at once, a desperate measure in desperate need, you'd get the experience part.

Fear of needles is a learnt response that one can unlearn.  So is getting creeped out by the sight of blood. As nurses say, it's just a liquid.  I wouldn't suggest that most people start by doing platelets. A whole blood donation takes very little time; the red tape takes longer than giving the red stuff. Platelet donations take (red tape included) a couple of hours and usually involve both arms. But where else does one get to lie on a heated couch in the middle of the day, under heated blankets, and do nothing but squeeze a rubber ball and watch a DVD?

The Internet has been afloat with people offering prayers for Boston this past week, and West, TX as well. Prayers be damned. If you can give blood, you should.

Moments of Achievement

Today was round two of me vs platelet donation. This round went to me.

First, this business of hydrating heavily for three days before a platelet donation does seem to help the blood vessels. It is less kindly to the bladder of someone my age. When giving platelets, one is skewered in place by each arm. When the bladder fills before the process is done, there's no choice but to hold it. I was flanked by male donors more or less my age, who made it through: I took that as a sign. Having plenty of time to reflect, it did seem I might have overdone the hydration. One should have the balance right next time.

I discovered that it's possible to move and shift one's arms a little in this. This relieved some guilt from the first failed effort, when I was sure I'd screwed things up by moving an arm. As it happened, I had to move the pumping arm quite a lot to keep the pump primed. Once I realised I could see, and interpret, the screen, I got up a pretty good bit of biofeedback keeping the flow rate within acceptable limits. Now that required a fair amount of arm moving.

At any rate, it worked, and I'll be back next month. It's worth doing. A pint of whole blood can provide platelets for three people, and one can give it only once every 56 days. The platelet product of one such session can help up to 18 people. And there's still just one source for these blood products: other people.

Running out of limbs

Some debts are paid--gladly--in blood. So, for many years, I have given mine to square accounts. Both subtle hints from Red Cross, and prodding from a former supervisor, finally got me to step up from whole blood to platelet donation.

Given the medical amusements of the rest of the week, it would seem to be an inauspicious time to try platelet donation. However, blood donors insensibly fall into a life cycle of 56 days (the interval between safe donations) and my moment had come. I had an afternoon on my hands and so tried a walk-in platelet donation.

Disclaimer: anyone looking for an excuse not to donate blood has come to the wrong address. I've been deep in this business, and whatever you have heard, synthetic blood is way in the future. Also, whole blood has become a comparatively primitive way of making your donation. Each pint of whole blood, or its equivalent, can be divided and redivided to help more than one person. At the cost of a larger time commitment, depending on what you do, you can extend the benefit of your donation severalfold. There are all too many legitimate (and a couple of dubious) reasons not to accept blood. Here, we don't accept being scared of needles, et al., as legitimate excuses.

That said, platelet donation has a learning curve. For one thing, not everyone qualifies, which makes it that much more important for those who do to step up. There is also, I've learnt, insider knowledge that makes the process go more smoothly. Hard-core whole-blood donors like me can pump out a pint in less than ten minutes: the bulk of the time commitment is the paperwork before, and the recovery after, the donation. Platelet donation takes two hours, plus paperwork and recovery. This works best if one plans ahead, makes an appointment, and otherwise makes ready. OK, lesson learnt.

Another feature is that while whole-blood donation, and some types of apheresis donation, require only one arm like whole blood donation, I was doing the two-arm method. Put crudely, the process pumps blood out of one arm, splits out the platelet cells, and pumps the remaining plasma into the other arm. This requires that a) one keeps one's arms quite still for the whole two hours or b) failing that, one knows when to ask for help with certain activities of daily living, such as rubbing one's nose.

Things went quite well for an hour or so. Then, I felt a twitch in my left (incoming) arm, followed by the chillin' sensation that tells the hard-core donor that all is not well. I was making contact with the techs at the same moment the machine began redlining. Yep, sure, the incoming vein had misbehaved and plasma was merrily pumping into the surrounding tissue. End of donation. I felt rather bad about this until they said first that I had given a usable donation, and second that this shit happens.

It will be late tomorrow before I'm doing any lifting worth mentioning. Since I already have one leg at less than 100 percent, I'm feeling a little short of limbs.
Fifty-six days from now I will be back at this, with my accumulated knowledge. Because I am eligible and because this is one debt that will never be fully paid.