"When I get dusted/ I like to spread the blood like mustard..."
Have you ever tried to do something good for your fellow man, and it ended up backfiring, or something happened that just made you feel worse, and thus wondering why you ever tried to help in the first place? The R.D. just had that experience recently.
This week, we were sent several emails about a state-wide blood drive and were encouraged to help "save lives" by donating blood. Now, yours truly is not a huge fan of needles, nor of watching his life-fluid spill out of his arm at an alarmingly rapid rate, but, after wrestling with the moral implications of giving vs. not giving, I decided to give it a go.
So, my first thought was that if one person's blood would be great, imagine how great ten or twenty peoples' blood would be! So, I sent off a few emails asking my local friends to come with. Of course, as I've come to expect from most of my dealings in life with the young, liberal crowd, no one wanted to come (although I have to add a few did decline for legitimate reasons). So, like Billy Joe Armstrong, I, the Real
Dookie, was forced to walk this lonely road alone, down to the donation center.
Apparently, now-a-days, if all goes well, giving blood is a three-tier process (four, if you get some free food or drinks afterward). First, you get and give initial information from a receptionist. Then, you get screened by a
screener. Finally, you get your blood drawn from a nurse,
phlebotomist, or, if hell is about to freeze over, an actual doctor. However, at my recent experience, I did not get that far.
First, I met the receptionist. A middle-aged, heavy-set woman, she spoke very softly and in very broken English, with a thick Hispanic accent. I tried to understand her as much as I could, using the reading materials for context clues. After several attempts, I was able to fill out the initial form to the best of my understanding.
[A side note here about the
initial form. It is extremely invasive. It asks about sexual history, STD history, sexual orientation, drug use, travel, illnesses, medications you are taking, weight, and other personal information. And then it asks if you spend time with anyone who exhibits these characteristics. After reading it, it would seem that only the most boring, straitlaced,
monogamous, abstinent (or married -- same difference?), and yet wildly open, accommodating, and unconcerned-about-privacy-implication-type person can give blood. Either that or an outright liar. Hoping to be the former, I filled it out as honestly as I could.]
Anyway, after filling out the form I was asked to sign a log of patrons for the day. I perused the log and was dismayed to find that none of my friends (that I could tell), and only a few of my co-workers had given blood on this day. Of those who did, it looked like none of them were lawyers. Helping to contribute to popular lore, it seems we only suck blood, apparently.
After this I was ushered in to see the
screener. This woman was a magnificent bitch. First, she asked me what I did and then about the legal system, and the difference between different courts. After trying to explain the difference, she apparently came to the conclusion that federal court was all for "drug cases." While I explained that many of the criminal cases that come to federal court do involve drugs, federal courts handle all federal criminal cases, and civil suits also, but usually those that involve $75,000 or more. However, this was like tapping a burnt out light bulb trying to get light, so I moved on.
I only add the above anecdote because courtesy was not returned to me about my ignorance with the blood donation industry. This woman berated me for filling in a question I was not supposed to fill out, because I thought the first woman told me to fill it out. The question in question was an acknowledgment of getting supplemental information.
"You didn't get any supplemental information, so why did you fill this out?" She asked, condescendingly.
"Because," I replied, "I thought [the first woman] said to fill it out, plus, I thought this second sheet [showing the second sheet of paper I was given] was the supplemental information." I mean, I'm sorry, but no matter how much
schoolin' I have, I can't understand Spanglish. Plus, it looked like I had been given an extra sheet of info.
"No!" she shot back. "That is not supplemental information. It is stapled to the initial information."
As my man
Staffman would say here, I felt like I was in some Orwellian-type bullshit. Do I explain to her that the very definition, the very
essence of supplemental information, is extra information freaking attached to initial information? Hoping to still actually do my good deed, I sighed and let it go.
Then came the travel questions. I marked that I had been out of the USA in the past 3 years, so I had to answer a flood of -- here comes that word again -- supplemental questions. As I was interrogated, it came out that I had been to Costa Maya, Mexico and Belize City, Belize, earlier this year. First, she got me on Belize? "Did you go see the ruins?"
"No." I replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Because everyone who goes to Mexico or Belize goes to see the ruins." It was clear there was no way I was going to get out of that room until I told this woman about my whole trip. So, after explaining how I was sure that floating on a beach and on a river did not involve climbing ruins, we went on to Mexico. She looked up the "risk list," to see if any Country where I had been was a place where there was risk if you gave blood.
"I'm going to look up Costa Maya," she says, "Because one of those places, Costa Rica, Costa Maya, one of those '
Costas' is on the list." So, she turns to "C," and surprise! there's no Costa Maya.
"Costa Maya is in Mexico," I said softly.
"I KNOW!" she shoots back, clearly angry. Dear lord, please let me get out of this alive. Then why the hell are you looking it up under C,
dumbass? Anyway, as it turns out, Costa Maya, ironically the cleanest place I went to on my trip, where I only spent an hour shopping, is on the risk list. So, I can't give blood. Damn it all to hell.
I get up to leave. "DON'T leave yet, I'm not done," she barks. Screw me. I'm going to end up in a dumpster somewhere. Then, she starts grilling me about exactly when I went to Costa Maya. "February," I say.
"NO, I need to know the exact day."
[I tell her I don't know.]
"See, if it was 2/1, then you can give blood again on 2/1/08, but if it's just February, then it won't be until 3/1." My God, my God, I am really regretting giving them my address and email.
"Fine." I say. Lady, I
don't care if I cant give until 2084. Let me the shit out of this room. Finally, she dismisses me,
practically ordering me to "get cookies" on the way out. I didn't. I ran out of there, in the rain, and brooded on my way back indoors.
The question remains, will I give blood next year? Based on their ridiculous rules, I will have a lot of time to think about it. My first thoughts were ones of frustration and anger. I mean, seriously, with workers like this, who needs cynical life-suckers to convince you to be selfish? Can you have donor fatigue without actually being a donor? Do you really need to be a robot ass-kisser and go through more hassle than that of buying a gun for the privilege of getting your blood sucked until you almost faint? Should I just not try anymore? But as I had time to think about it, I realized that is too defeatist. So, I came up with a temporary solution. I'm going to give a few bucks to Catholic Charities, with the condition that they "be nice" to their volunteers. Hey, it's not much, but at least they let dudes who have spent an hour in Costa Maya give them money before March of 2008.
