10th Pint

Every eight weeks, like clockwork, the Blood Centers of the Pacific ask me to come down for a pint. Since we've been in San Francisco I have donated (as of this morning) ten pints--a gallon and a quart, if I calculate that right. Giving blood is one of those things which seems both karmically sound and easy--go in, answer a few questions, sit still for twenty minutes, have a doughnut and a cup of tea and sit for another twenty minutes, then go on my way. No one else in the family feels that way--Spouse, for all he is a doughty fellow, is squicked out by the notion of giving blood (although in justice I think he would, if there were some emergency). SG, who is still too young, also has a significant fear of needles--so significant that she's undergoing desensitization treatment. The very mention of going to the Blood Center with me made her promise to clean her room and eat her vegetables. And YG, also too young, is squicked out a little too--she once came with me when I donated, insisting that it would be really cool, only to find that she preferred talking to the phlebotomists and pointedly not looking at Mama with the needle in her arm. I'm also an organ donor, should I die with my innards useable, and have had to have some stern talks with Spouse about this; organ donation squicks him out too. Again, I like the idea of doing something good so effortlessly--if I can't use my heart or my kidneys or whatever, why shouldn't someone else have them and bless my name (it really is all about me).

But part of the reason I give blood is that I love the technology. I mean, really. I remember when I first gave blood, waaaaaay back in the '70s, when I was a Harvard employee; the technology was comparatively primative. Yes, they had the plastic collection bags, but they didn't have all the other cool things. Like, nowadays, rather than swabbing you down with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol, and then one soaked in iodine, they have a prepackaged swab: squeeze it til it pops and the alcohol is dispensed for swabbing. Turn it over, squeeze it again, the swab has iodine on it. Easy-peasy. Then there's the little metal crimps they put on the line, after you've filled up the bag, to seal off the blood in the bag but still allow the phlebotomist to eke out some blood for the four test tubes that accompany your donation (so they can test for various things that would make the blood ineligible for transfusion). And the cool little cylindrical widget they put on the line, which diverts the blood into the test tubes. And the blue plastic thing which, at the end, they use to withdraw the needle from the vein. I'm sure all these things have proper names, and the fact that somewhere someone is inventing these tools foolishly delights me.

Granted, I'm the kind of woman who was cranky because, when she had an emergency C-section, they wouldn't let me watch. I love those "true tales of the ER" things on The Learning Channel. So giving blood not only helps my community, it means I get to watch the process and admire all the tiny, easily-taken-for-granted bits of technology. It's win-win for me.