TODAY's QUOTE What we're witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country's had in a generation. ~ Jason West, Mayor of New Paltz, NY Yesterday's Entries 2001: How the Other Half Lives TODAY's READ Reading Lolita in Tehran Getting to know me....
|
MY HEART BLEEDS FOR YOU 28 February 2004 Literally. It was 8:40 this morning. I was sitting here, quietly minding my own business, trying to finish off a report I needed to "rinse" (as the psychiatrist calls editing) and thinking about gathering the things on my list for the women’s circle I’m going to tomorrow. I glanced down at my desk calendar and saw the notation: 9 a.m. - Blood Yikes! I was supposed to go donate blood at 9 a.m. and there I was in my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers sipping my coffee. I rushed around here, making my bed (‘cause I can’t go off and leave an unmade bed any more, you know), getting dressed, and managed to make it to the blood draw station only 5 minutes late. A record. (It helps that it’s only a mile away.) We went through all the, as the nurse describes them, "icky questions" about what diseases I’ve had, my drug taking history, the number of times I’ve paid for sexual partners, all of my venereal diseases, and all that fun stuff. I always come away from answering questions for these forms by thinking that I really lead a very boring life. It was touch and go for a minute because my blood was a tad low on hemoglobin and so they had to centrifuge the blood to see if it was good enough for them. But I passed the test and got to enter the blood draw room. I do love this station. It’s so bright and cheery and the staff all seems to have a good time--either that or they play it up big for donors who might be a bit nervous about having someone jab a needle into a vein and watch their precious bodily fluids drain out into a bag on a scale on the floor. Blood draws have never bothered me. There must be a vampire somewhere in my family tree (and our tree is filled with so many nuts, its distinctly possible!). I enjoy watching them jab that big thick needle into a vein and watch the blood start flowing into the tube. They always cover the jab spot with a towel "so you don’t spray blood all over yourself." Donating blood always seems like such an anticlimactic thing to do. You just lie there, reading your book, turning a little tube round and round in your hand while your blood gradually drains out of you. Then they send you over to get donuts and orange juice. And they order you to eat a snack. How great is that? Not only that, but the next meal is supposed to be "a hearty one." You know, if blood draw stations were smart, they’d do their marketing at WeightWatchers, Jenny Craig, and Overeaters Anonymous meetings. Guilt-free snacking! All you have to do is leave behind a pound of blood and you can have a guilt-free donut, and we’ll even give you a coupon for a free pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream. The donation went uneventfully, then they wrapped my arm in a color-coordinated blue bandage and sent me off to the snack table, where I sat there and read about Mel Gibson’s hedging on whether or not he believed there actually was a Holocaust ("well, I know people with numbers tatooed on their arm, and there certain was a lot of killing, and some of those people were Jewish..." Thanks for that clarification, Mel). When I came home it was to a newspaper article that in New Paltz, NY they have begun marrying gay couples. Elected officials are starting to get some ethics and people from coast to coast are beginning to have a taste of equality despite the presidential call for Constitutional approval of discrimination. That’s a country worth bleeding for.
|
|
PHOTO OF THE DAY
|
||
For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog |
||
Weight Lost to date: 45.8 lbs
<--previous | next-->Journal home | bio | cast | archive | links | awards | Fotolog | Bev's Home Page |
Created 2/25/04
