Plasma Girl

I walk in and I'm such a badass.  I strut around saying, 'yeah, I've donated whole blood before.  Never plasma, but lots of whole blood.'  Because saying 'whole' blood makes me better than these plasma wimps.  Right.  I go through all the prescreen stuffs and finally end up on the chair.  Nic so-and-so helps me get comfy and explains this and that.  He says my heart might race a little and that my mouth is gonna taste funny.  He says that my lips might tingle too.  That's because of the anticoagulant.  Then he calls over some super smooth operator (cause Nic can't find my vein) to put in the needle.  I have to make a fist over and over again - squeezing air - whenever the arm cuff tightens.  I can relax when the band relaxes.  This pattern of squeezing and relaxing goes on for an hour.

Immediately I feel myself get twitchy and hot.  I start to sweat and my tummy gets tight.  Waves of panic manifest in giggles and I put my hand up over my mouth to cover my contorting lips.  For the next hour I feel like a crazy person, counting in German, squeezing air, watching the others around me and giggling and giggling and giggling.  So I text my friend and I pretend that I'm giggling over her texts.  She's talking to me about the novel chapter I submitted for workshop and she's ranting at me and after a while I'm no longer pretending that her texts are making me smile because they really are.  She gives me feedback of a different sort - not the kind that my mentor usually gave - and she has a true emotional response and I feel like 'Yes!  I'm doing okay!'

Then I'm just about done with squeezing air and laying there with a palpitating heart.  I feel saline going into my veins and that means I only have four minutes left.  It's cold.  Nic told me that it would be pretty chilly since the saline is room temp and my body is a raging 98.6 degrees.  He's right. It's cold but not just cold, it's so cold it almost burns and I feel funny up along my shoulders.  I wiggle and finally it's over.  He comes back and pulls out the needle, presses gauze down into the crux of my arm and then wraps me up with pink tape.  He asks me how it went and I pretty much shrug and tell him it was great.  After he shows me how to check out, I go and wait for Hannah.  She waltzes over just perfect and pretty as a peach.  She's got purple tape on her arm and it matches her shirt and her eye shadow.  I try to sound cool as I ask how it went and she shrugs, but she really means it.  She says it was just fine.  She asks me the same question I asked her and my eyes get all wet and I tell her I'm about to have a mental break down but at least we got paid, right?

We're going back on Saturday.