On Wednesday, I gave blood. I've donated blood a few other times here. The Blood Bank of Hawaii comes to our school every eight weeks. I have really good veins (thank you, mom) and no one has ever had a problem finding them before. I also don't mind needles and have never had an adverse reaction to giving blood, so it's not really a big deal for me. This Wednesday was a bit different. It took the large Polynesian nurse an extremely long time to find a vein that she could deem worthy of using. She pumped up the blood pressure cuff and just kept poking and prodding around my arm, mumbling and sniffling to herself the whole time, along with the occasional cough into her lab jacket. Lovely. Finally, she decided on a vein and put the needle in....excruciatingly slow. Alright, hard part's over, right? Wrong. Apparently my blood wasn't flowing very well because of the positioning of the needle. Solution of the nurse: just keep re-positioning the needle! For about 20 minutes, there were four nurses crowding around me, all taking turns trying to re-position the needle. I felt it the whole time. Finally I said, "This is a little painful." "Painful to the point that you can't bear it?" "No, I can bear it, but it's uncomfortable..." I was pumping that foam ball so hard. The faster I pumped, the faster I would be out of there. At last, I was done, but they still needed samples and to take the needle out. However, the needle didn't need any assistance in extraction. Because they had been twisting, pushing, and pulling the needle so much, it was just barely under my skin and it literally fell out. The blood pressure cuff was still tightened on my arm and my blood was just gushing out, pooling on the cot I was laying on. Luckily, I quickly moved my body out of the way so the blood wouldn't get on my new shirt (thank you, mom). The nurses quickly cleaned up the blood and put some pressure on the hole in my vein. My arm was covered in blood, but they cleaned that up for me, too. One of the nurses laughed and asked me, "Is this your first time?" No. Is it yours?
So, that's good.
Holy cow! I had almost the exact same experience on Friday, except my nurse was not even a real nurse (You always know to feel nervous when the name tag says "Student."). I did not bruise so bad, though. Or bleed all over. Ok, so yours was much worse. But at least I can relate to the good veins/bad nurse part!
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