My Stash posting is a bit delayed because I took the afternoon off to go give blood. I do this quite often, ever since 9/11, as I feel that donating blood is one of the laziest ways you can volunteer to help others – you just sit there and bleed. I’ve been encouraged to come back often because my blood type is A+, which is apparently in demand.
This time I was performing an apheresis. Instead of just sitting there for five minutes bleeding into a bag (I’m quick, they tell me), they pump my blood out into a machine that separates out the platelets and then feeds the red blood back into me for two hours. As the nurse does my intake, she tests my blood and finds my hemoglobin count to be 13.8. That is apparently good, because she said that meant they could take a double helping from me today.
So they hook me up to the machine and I grab “Outfoxed” to watch on the DVD player. As the machine is running the nurse turns to her colleagues and starts asking some questions about my chart. One in charge seems to give the go ahead for something. My nurse turns to me and says, “Your platelet count is so high we can take a triple donation! You’re really rare – an A positive with high hemoglobin and high platelets – we never get anybody with a platelet count over 400!”
“Really?” I respond, “What was my platelet count, anyway?” (And seriously, Stashers, I am not making this up.)
She replies, “420.”
I laughed and a few nurses did, too. I was, as always, wearing my male-pattern baldness vanity shield 100% hemp potleaf cap. I said, “Wow, here I thought the leaf on my hat made me a pothead; turns out it’s in my blood!” The ice was broken and for the rest of the time, the nurses and I discussed medical marijuana, and everyone was on my side and frustrated that medical science isn’t allowed to touch it. I like those Red Cross people.
OK, back to reading and writing and recording and editing. I am Super-Bleeder, Creator of Swell A+ Blood! (And I got off that machine in just under 100 minutes when they predicted 120.)
