Tapping a Vein, or, The Well Runs Dry

I was scheduled to donate platelets today. I didn't.

There were omens, signs it was not to be.

The blood pressure machine farted and shut itself down while I was cuffed. While it cycled through its reboot, the nurse and I debated whether my walking around without a measurable pulse meant I was a ghost or vampire. I told her I preferred undead (which I have been accused of being before by a number of people who have never seen me out in sunlight).

After she looked me over disbelievingly when I told her I had lost ten pounds over the last two months (when I gain weight it is distributed pretty evenly across my frame and when I lose it it disappears the same way) she informed me that I would probably not be able to donate a double unit ever again since that ability is conditioned upon a volume/mass ratio (platelets to weight) that I no longer achieved. Who knew?

While settling into the couch, I mentioned that her substitute last month (she'd taken Memorial Day weekend off) had commented on how my vein bifurcated just above the usual draw site and how she had spent several minutes palpating the spot and debating which path she should take which ultimately made no difference as the apheresis machine kept beeping throughout the procedure anyway.

The nurse then proceeded to stick me and missed the vein entirely. She could tell because there was no draw and I could tell because of the pain. She wiggled the needle around and I began to turn red and sweat. Finally, she broke the wall of the vein (I could feel it) and filled her little sample vials. Then the machine started with a continuous series of beeps unlike the usual ones I am used to. There was maybe five inches of blood in the draw tube and the rest was clear plastic. Nothing was moving.

At that point we gave up. She told me that if it wasn't drawing right (which it obviously wasn't) it would never return right which meant at some point it would "infiltrate" which is med-speak for squirting the blood back, not into a vein, but directly into the muscle which, I can testify from previous experience, is extremely painful. (Not laser beam-to-the-ear painful, which is another story, but still.)

She removed the needle and we rescheduled for next week.

I took a cookie anyway. For "pain and suffering."