{"id":7741,"date":"2011-11-12T22:50:51","date_gmt":"2011-11-13T03:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=7741"},"modified":"2011-11-12T22:50:51","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T03:50:51","slug":"bloody-heck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=7741","title":{"rendered":"Bloody heck"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I lead such an exciting life that I fell asleep yesterday evening before I could write anything about my day here. Which is maybe just as well, since nothing much happened yesterday. Looking back on it, I can’t think of a single thing that separated it from any of a dozen other days.<\/p>\n

Today was a little different. First I mailed some packages that needed mailing at the post office, and then I drove to a local mall to donate blood. I’m a semi-regular donor, so I get e-mails about the blood drives in my area, and apparently there’s an increased need for A+ blood, which is what I happen to have. I’m always happy to help when I can, and when it’s relatively convenient, so I drove over as a walk-in.<\/p>\n

They were still in the process of setting up, inside an abandoned nail salon on the mall’s first floor, but despite the line of people already there (around 11 o’clock) I wasn’t waiting too long. In retrospect, I probably should have used the time I was waiting to do something productive, like take in some more fluids.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t at all dehydrated, and I’d had breakfast. Like I said, I’ve given blood before and I know the drill. But I could have used more fluids. Because, for one, my blood just wasn’t coming out. The nurse technician spent a lot of time adjusting my arm, asking me to make a fist, release, and re-adjusting the needle. Which, honestly, was not fun. I’m not especially squeamish, but anything that reminds me there’s a large needle sticking into my arm — like looking at the blood circling out or a woman pulling the needle out, pushing it back in — is going to get to me. <\/p>\n

After a while, it started to hurt, but it was bearable, and we seemed to have hit upon an arm placement that worked for getting the blood out of it.<\/p>\n

And then I got to feeling light-headed, and that was all she wrote.<\/p>\n

A few minutes earlier, the woman behind me had passed out. I couldn’t see it happen, but I heard them reviving her and calling her name. She seemed fine after, and it’s apparently not at all an uncommon occurrence — I’ve seen it happen a few times myself, including the very first time I gave blood, back in high school — but everyone was on heightened alert. They immediately put my feet up and my head back, put ice behind my head, and had me relax my arm.<\/p>\n

If you tell them at a blood drive that you feel light-headed, they take that very<\/i> seriously. I remember once, in college, I said, after donating, that I maybe felt a little<\/i> dizzy. Like, maybe just enough that I wanted someone to hold my arm as we walked over to the juice and cookies, rather than going it alone. I didn’t feel really woozy. I did today, so I’m glad I said something. I felt better laying back, and apparently that’s all my arm needed to start giving up the blood. The tech joked that I didn’t want to do any work except lying down with my feet up, but it did seem to work.<\/p>\n

After, I had some of the juice and pretzels provided, and then a bottle of water from the vending machine on my way out of the mall. They tell you to drink plenty of fluids. I didn’t drink enough going in; I didn’t want to repeat that mistake going out.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, the day has actually been surprisingly uneventful. I watched an okay (but not amazing) movie called Criminal<\/a>, and I watched some episodes of Cheers<\/i> and Community<\/i>. Yep, real exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I lead such an exciting life that I fell asleep yesterday evening before I could write anything about my day here. Which is maybe just as well, since nothing much happened yesterday. Looking back on it, I can’t think of a single thing that separated it from any of a dozen other days. Today was … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14,28,17],"class_list":["post-7741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-movies","tag-personal","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}