04-22-2011 - a photo on Flickriver

04-22-2011

Confession: I'm addicted to donating blood. This post is not meant to be preach-y, only an earnest attempt to explain why I feel I get so much out of giving what I can.

I donated blood for the first time when I was in university at an on-campus clinic. It wasn't even a great first experience: the nurse carelessly dropped the heavy bag of freshly collected blood right on my stomach while she was cleaning/packaging things up. I almost hurled on the spot.

I stuck with it though and took it upon myself to send out mass emails to my field hockey teammates and other friends when there was going to be another clinic on campus. At one point, I even tried to make a "Blood Club" wherein members could donate blood with me at the permanent office in the ManuLife building on Bloor. Then we could go watch a movie at the Cumberland Theatre after. This only lasted once though. Meaghan isn't able to donate blood and gets sick at the sight of it so she waited outside as Vivian and I made our donations. After the movie, we were having a drink on the Shaw porch and planned to head over to Sneaky's but Vivian started feeling light headed, so we had to call it a night. The end of the Blood Club.

For Information Design 2 in 3rd yr, I decided to do my research on the UN's World Blood Donor Day. I called up my old teammate's mom, who is a Blood Services nurse, and asked her all sorts of questions about what happens when you make a donation. Up until this point, I just donated regularly out of blind faith that I was doing something good. With the help of Sarah's mom, I learned about the different components in a whole blood (regular) donation and what each part does and how long it all lasts. It was in a conversation with Mrs. Kissick that I learned about aphaeresis, which is a process where you only donate platelets. They are able to do this by separating your blood on the spot and returning your red blood cells and plasma to you. A platelets donation yields roughly the same about of platelets that would be collected in 6-7 regular whole blood donations. Also, since red blood cells are the only component that take a while to regenerate, you can donate platelets every other week!

Once I heard about this option, I was sold. I was a semi-regular donor at the Toronto Blood Services HQ at College & Bay while in school and for the stint I worked at Identica. It was pretty fun there: you got a portable DVD player and got to pick from a pretty respectable selection of current movies (donated by Blockbuster) to watch while they took your donation. You see, platelet donations take about 2-3 hours. (You can also donate just plasma which is a 30-min procedure and can be done EVERY WEEK. And you can do what's called a concurrent donation and donate both platelets and plasma, just not RBCs -- but I don't know how long you have to wait in between those visits.)

If you want to learn more about the blood donation process, you can check out the info graphic that I designed here: www.runcomrade.ca/JaniceWong_whatHappens.pdf

===

When I went with my family to China in 2009, I visited what is considered a malaria-risk city, so I had to wait a full year before making another donation. It really sucked, but I was patient. When finally a year passed, I eagerly called to make an appointment--- only to be told that my latest trip to Morocco was also considered a malaria-risk, so there was another year to wait.

Finally, since March 2011 I have been eligible to donate again. (I also found out that while it's a year-long wait to donate whole blood or platelets again, you only have to wait 6-months before donating plasma again. And Morocco isn't on the malaria-risk list anymore.) It was a little tricky getting an appointment at the Calgary Blood Services since I have a 9-5 work schedule to navigate now, so I started off with a plasma donation which went just fine. Then the trouble came...

The last 2 attempts I made to donate platelets, the nurses were unable to get the needle into my vein properly. Since it's expensive to set up the whole machine again with sterile tubes, etc. they do NOT try to enter a vein in the other arm unless you are donating for a specifically matched patient. So after 2 years of waiting, I was sent home twice without making any donations. It was really frustrating. I don't even know why, but on the way home the second time I almost cried I was so upset that this wasn't working. I have a high platelet count which means if they could just get my veins to co-operate, they could be collecting large volume donations from me (the equivalent of a double donation of platelets). And yet I kept wasting their supplies and being sent home with an uncomfortable needle prick in my arms. I just wanted to GIVE them what I could. The last failed visit, they recommended that I try to do some plasma donations first before trying platelets again. I resigned to it and decided if that was what we were going to do, I would do it every week.

This morning, I got a call from a very perky Blood Services nurse saying that they had some cancellations and that the head nurse was working and she was confident she could get the needle into my vein, if I had time to come in. As circumstances would have it, all I was doing was lying in bed wondering what I was going to do with my day off, since I have no friends... :P

The donation didn't go perfectly, but at least they got a collection out of me! Apparently, nurses usually go with the centre vein but on my arm they could see scar tissue around the side vein, which is where the nurses in Toronto must have entered. Dawn (my nurse) decided to try for the centre anyway, but we realized in hindsight there was a reason that my past, successful, donations had been off the side. They had to stop my donation 2 cycles short of completion (1 cycle = a draw / collection of blood, 2nd cycle = a return / giving back the plasma and RBCs) because the draw from my vein was going so slowly. THEN in order to give me back my RBCs and plasma to ensure I wouldn't have to wait 56 days to donate again, they had to enter my right vein to do the final return. Unfortunately, even though all my veins LOOK fine, both the centre veins have valves (?) close to where the needle would normally go in. The valves control blood flow and apparently you do not want a needle close to them. So Dawn had to reposition the needle while it was in my vein.

I think today might have been one of the more painful donations I've ever made. I for sure have never had bruising this bad... BUT I still felt good doing it. It just makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile, like I'm tangibly adding some good to the world. And if it hurt me for an hour, it still doesn't compare to whatever the person who needs these platelets is going through. (A lot of platelet donations go to babies who have leukaemia-- for real.)

I donate blood when I can, navigating the sometimes frustrating processes regarding travel and getting appointments booked, because it helps me feel connected to society at large, because I like knowing that there is a way to help a stranger just by sitting in a chair and reading my iPad there with a needle hooked up to me instead of at home in front of a TV, because I'd like to hope if I or any of my family ever needed help from a stranger, that there would be someone out there to give it.

Happy Good Friday everyone, I know mine was great!

===

If you think you want to try making a donation, you can go here for all the info:
www.bloodservices.ca/

Or, send me a msg and I can answer any questions you have. I might have stopped sending out my blood mass emails, but I'm still always interested in helping someone get excited about donating!

Taken on: April 22, 2011

Tags:

donating

blood

platelets

skinny veins

needles

good

Photo Booth

photo-a-day « less

Sets appears in: • here's to being here.

Stats: 8,740 views / 2 comments

go back