Blood
Thursday, August 31st, 2006You know how it is. You and a partner, or best friend, or family member have talked so many times of doing something together one day, that it becomes almost like a pact. So when all of a sudden life presents you and you alone with a silver-plated opportunity to do that something, you don’t because it would be breaking the pact. And you know they wouldn’t be happy.
So that’s how I found myself sitting in the waiting room at the Red Cross Blood Donation Centre, but not donating blood. Just waiting. Not that I’m entirely unhappy about that. My last experience there in what must have been about 1998 was rather embarrassing. You see, I have aichmophobia.
I hate needles. I just can’t stand them. My whole life I’ve struggled internally before the necessary jabs, quelling the visions of glinting steel, the nauseousness, the instinct to get up and run. Usually I only need to do this for a few minutes, and then the whole process is over.
Eight years ago at the Donation Centre, I sat in the waiting room with my then-girlfriend. I was flicking through the “what happens to your blood” pamphlet, reasoning like any good engineer that a healthy dose of practical science and a good understanding of what was going on would dispel the nervousness. I was also drinking my third cup of orange juice, as plenty of food and drink is recommended in the hours beforehand. All perfectly sensible.
I started reading about how the blood is spun around in a centrifuge to separate the red cells, platelets and plasma, successfully keeping the needle visions at bay. But all of a sudden I started to feel dizzy. The cheerful pictures blurred before my eyes. I could feel the blood rushing through my body, trying to escape. Then horror of horrors, I felt that old familiar feeling welling up from my gut.
I realised I was on the second floor. I couldn’t process my surroundings. I had to get out of the building, find a gutter or a bin. I got up and walked quickly to the stairs. I made it down to the half-way landing before the final sense of inevitability caught me. Someone was ascending the stairs and had paused nearby. I handed my plastic cup of orange juice to her, said politely, “Hold this please”, and passed out right there on the landing.
I never donated that day. It became a favourite dinner time story to entertain guests with over the years. As I sat in that waiting room today for an hour and a half reading a book (and avoiding the pamphlets), none of those old feelings emerged. But I still managed to embarrass myself - when sitting down I felt a huge bang in my head and a throbbing pain. Because the daft Red Cross people had placed their chairs right in front of a protruding stone window sill!!
As I promised my other half not very truthfully, hopefully one day I’ll return soon, to complete the mission, complete the pact.
