Giving blood is a noble and respectable thing. I don’t do it.
I’m not proud of that, mind you. I’d like to give of myself in that way. I admire those who are generous enough to do it.
The reason I don’t give is because I experience an acute physiological reaction that induces a physical manifestation of mild shock.
Um… I pass out like a kidney stone.
It wasn’t always this way. There once was a time when I wasn’t a wuss and this didn’t bother me. Let me explain what happened.
I grew up on a dairy farm. As a teenager, one of my chores was to feed the cows. The meal of the evening for them on one occasion was hay. I would pick up a square bale of hay with my left hand, and with my right I would take a jackknife and cut through the twine. The bale would spring open and I would distribute the hay down the manger accordingly.
On this fateful night, I would accidentally and unthinkingly extend my left thumb as I brought the knife up through the twine, and along with slicing the twine, and sliced the fat part of my thumb between the first knuckle and the tip pretty severely. Not fun.
In those days, seeing my own blood didn’t affect me. I scurried to the house and started cleaning out the wound in the bathroom sink. There was no shortage of red to be seen, and things were going as smoothly as could be expected for someone suffering from a self-inflicted gash.
Enter my dad.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” asked my loving father, who started observing my unesirable circumstance.
I replied in an uncertain way. “Doesn’t what bother me?”
“You know,” he responded. “Seeing your own blood like that.”
“No. Why would it bother me?”
Then came the words that would change me forever. “Well, whenever I start bleeding, I can’t take it. I get faint, and I start to sweat, and (yada yada yada)…”
I say, “Yada yada yada” because I never heard his words after that. By the time he was done talking, I was flat on the floor, breaking out in a cold sweat and feeling like all the enregy had been sucked from my body. Since that day, I can take nothing.
Well, years passed. I grew older and more mature. I was over 30 and had never ventured to the blood bank, because I figured I wouldn’t be able to handle it. But then I started working for Travel Guard in 1999. They were very strong supporters of the blood drive. The entire executive team went out to donate, and I was invited. Under the theory that I was older and things certainly had to have changed by now, I accepted. I didn’t really consider at the time that my first foray back into the bloodletting business would be in front of the executive group at the company. That, in retrospect, was not well planned.
Well, as I sat in the chair where they stick the needle in your arm, I decided that I would be just fine if I didn’t watch anything. So I shut my eyes and let them do their thing. As I shut my eyes and leaned my head back I was actually doing OK. But then one of the nurses or something-or-another ran over to me and shook me, asking “Are you OK?” I responded that I was, and he had to start launching into how he needed to make sure since I had shut my eyes. By the time he was done talking, I was out.
Well, this is kind of an embarrassing place to pass out in front of people you know. First of all, they won’t take that needle out of your arm no matter what. They’re getting that pint, God bless them. But they plop you backwards and stick cold packs on your forehead and lift up your feet.
Unbknownst to me, the Executive VP of Sales and Marketing, Tom, grabbed our PR Director’s cell phone and called back to the office and started giving play by play. As I hear it, he led off with “Joey’s down!!” and proceeded with all the details. Worse yet, after I recovered and finally started eating the soup and crackers, I passed out again! They carted me over to the corner until I fully came back to reality. The CFO had to stick around to take me back to the office.
Age and maturity, apparently, mean nothing when it comes to wussiness.
It gets worse. A couple years later I increased our life insurance, and they needed to draw my blood. Just two little tubes. I was falt out on the kitchen table after one tube. The nurse was in awe, and concerned. My wife assured her that “Oh, he always does that.” She propped up my feet in the recliner and took the second tube, and I actually didn’t pass out again. So she told me that she used a pediatric needle, and that if I ever need blood drawn I should tell the doctor to use one of those. Yeah, that really increased the “manliness” rating, doesn’t it?
So, since then I have decided against giving blood. I donate money and try to help out with other causes to kind of make up for it. I still don’t feel real proud of it, but I just don’t feel like going through that every time.
I had a health nurse tell me that it wasn’t a psychological thing, it was a physiological thing. This was supposed to make me feel better. From what I took of the explanation, the difference is that a psychological thing is just all in your head and the effects are imagined. A physiological thing is so far into your brain that it actually induces a physical reaction. There’s something about this explanation that doesn’t make me feel better. It’s kind of like it’s a psychological thing on steroids.
So, to all my readers. Give blood. So I don’t have to. Thanks for your generosity.
