Work is about to get very busy again, but today was slow due to the holiday, so I decided to sneak off and donate a pint...
I've had trouble syncing up with my blood buddies - Bill is in the middle of tax season and won't surface again until after April 15, and David can only donate in the evenings. Jeanie had errands to run this morning, and the Red Cross was only open this morning, so I went alone. I was a little concerned that it might be crowded given the holiday, but I was able to walk right in and get processed.
The Red Cross has once again changed their questionnaire, and one question threw a wrench in the works: "Have you ever been to Africa?" Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I have. And, I visited a bunch of countries the summer that I was there. But, that was in 1970. Seems like any nasties that I might have picked up over thirty years ago would have killed me, or at least showed their nasty little heads, by now. There were a number of factors that made things really challenging. First off, I could hardly remember exactly which countries I had visited. To add to the complexity, many of the countries had different names back then. Finally, this new form has only been in use for five days, so figuring out how to process the "yes" answer took a bunch of research on the part of the person performing the pre-donation evaluation. I believe it took a little longer than it should have because even though they had a fairly straight forward flow chart to guide the evaluation, I don't know how familiar or comfortable the person was with following a flow chart. As far as I could tell looking over her shoulder, as soon as she realized that my visit was prior to 1977, she should have arrived at the conclusion that I was okay to donate - but, maybe I only saw the flow chart for part of the process. If in fact I interpreted the flow chart correctly, I would suggest that the question be reworded to ask "Have you been to Africa since 1977?" Anyway, without following that particular branch in the flow chart, we had to investigate the particular risks associated with each country and evaluate if I posed a threat to the blood supply. As far as I could tell, there were two primary concerns that the ARC was trying to assess - what was the risk that at some point in the past, I had contracted malaria or HIV/AIDS, both of which are obviously epidemic in at least parts of Africa. Don't get me wrong - I was more than happy to have to spend a few extra minutes being assessed to help increase the safety of our blood supply.
Once it was determined that my blood was acceptable to the ARC, I was able to go right to a donation station and take a seat. Linda was the technician, and she did a great job. The needle stick did not hurt at all - either in or out, and I was done almost literally before I knew it - definitely in record time for me.
After spending the mandatory ten minutes sitting in the canteen, I drove across the street to Regency Park and took my daily walk there - both for a change in scenery from my normal route, and because the weatherpersons are calling for rain this afternoon.
As if it wasn't a nice enough morning, since I decided to go early to donate, I also decided to treat myself to a breakfast combo #1 at Burger King. The potatoes were hot and crispy, and the sandwich was hot and fresh - yumm! And, to top it all off, as if that wasn't enough, it turned out that today was t-shirt day at the blood center, so I got a new American Red Cross t-shirt. I couldn't ask for anything more.
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Posted by David at March 25, 2005 12:36 PM