So the bloodmobile (mobile donation station; think of an extremely clean bus with only eight seats) made a stop at my workplace not too long ago. This visit was announced internally a month in advance via e-mail. Signs were posted all over the office. The bus showed up at 8AM and stayed until 8PM. There are over 600 people working at my office. How many units of blood do you suppose they collected?
If you guessed “six,” you’re right. Six! :mad:
I hereby pit all the fucking selfish assholes at my office who are too lazy, too wussy or too apathetic to spend half an hour doing something that has the very real possibility of saving a life. Exempted from my Pitting are:
People who cannot donate (too low body weight, anemic, HIV disease, etc.)
People who would not accept a blood transfusion even if they needed one. Jehovah’s Witnesses come to mind.
Everyone else can kiss my ass, including the giggly bitch who rolled her eyes at me for going to donate. When you get into a car accident and need three units of blood to survive, I hope you tell them that you “hate needles,” just like you told me while laughing me off.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t donate every eight weeks like I could or should, but at 25-30 units donated over my lifetime, I’m reasonably certain I’ve donated more than I’ll ever need to receive. People who don’t donate blood because it’s too inconvenient (a hard case to make when they come to your place of work), or because they don’t like needles, just grab my Categorical Imperative and twist it until it turns purple. What would you do if everyone thought and acted like you on this subject? Well, if you needed blood, you would fucking die.
Heh, glad you added that exemption for ineligibles. I was getting ready to rant that you shouldn’t be pitting me cause they won’t take my blood anyway and then you go and take away my ability to yell at you with that disclaimer. Humph.
I have a written lifetime deferral because I have had sex with another man at some time since 1978.
You want annoying? For some reason going to donate apparently sends my blood pressure sky-high. TWICE I’ve tried to do it, and both times, no way. I do not normally run at 150/110. I have no idea why it did that. I’m going to try again in the next day or two, because I finally (the only good thing about gaining weight) weigh enough and dammit, I owe a unit, having gotten one in 1986.
Maybe the third time will be the charm. I’m not even scared of getting blood drawn, I don’t get it!
I’m actually really terrified of the process involved in donating blood, and I’ve felt guilty in the past for not taking advantage of the opportunity. But I think I’m going to just suck it up next time.
I don’t donate. I used to. I did it for ten years.
And then the blood bank started calling me exactly 56 days after my last donation and insisting I come donate the very next day. They would call two, three, four times a day and insist that I come and donate at locations up to an hour drive away where they were having a shortage.
I told them that I’d be happy to donate as long as I was put on their ‘Do Not Call’ list, which they told me wouldn’t be a problem.
The next day, they called again.
The day after that, they called three times.
Ditto. I used to live near a blood bank, and donated plasma and platelets (a 2 hour+ procedure) biweekly (as often as i could given their scheduling. I would have gone more if they had space). People are just lazy.
Well, when the Canadian Blood Services Agency comes to terms with the fact that not every male who has had sex with another mail since 1978 is HIV positive, I will start donating blood again.
Until then I will sit back and laugh at the presumption that my straight friends don’t have all kinds of skanky, semi-anonymous, unsafe sex. (Okay, I have pervy straight friends, so sue me)
:eek: I agree that the blood bank that kept calling you over and over were total tools; they should just send you a brief reminder that you’re eligible to donate and then let you make the appointment when and how you choose.
But swearing off blood donation forever just because you’re pissed at one stupid blood bank? Isn’t that kind of cutting off injured people’s noses to spite the blood bank’s face? Is it worth abandoning your contribution to saving lives just in order to “punish” one office full of morons for the rest of your life?
The blood bank here doesn’t call, they just send me a postcard every time there’s a drive on campus, which are once each quarter, so every 10 weeks. I just donate there because its way more convenient than going into the center, which I actually have yet to do. Plus I can donate and treat myself to a good lunch next door at the Coffee House. Mmmm, CoHo nachos…
My department’s supervisor encouraged us all to go donate blood at our monthly blood drive, which is held during work hours. However, when asked at a meeting if we could have time off to go donate blood, the answer was no. Yeah, I’m trying to figure out the sense of that.
I’m what’s called a “poor stick.” I’d gotten up the courage to say fuck it and do a donation at work since it was right there, but then got the rug yanked out from under me on that plan. Plus I have to see if my medication list will pass muster with them now; it wouldn’t previously, IIRC.
I can’t donate, either: I have wee, tiny, ladylike veins way too small for the blood-donation hoses they use. Last time I tried, they stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and finally said, “Lady, we’d have to chop your arm off to get any blood.”
Count me in with those who wished that they could donate, but are not eligible to do so under current guidelines (click on link titled “Learn more about vCJD and blood donation.”):
I always used to donate blood, and I’ve auto-donated prior to having surgery. I wish that they would re-think that particular criterion. The chances of me being a carrier for Mad Cow Disease are so small as to be essentially non-existent.
I currently have a blood bank that just will not stop calling me. Every day, and they will not leave a message, they just keep calling. Once in a while I will complain to a supervisor and get off their list, but then they call me again after thirty days or so. Every day. For now I just don’t answer their calls (they’re the only “private” number that calls me).
So I have donated with a different blood bank. They haven’t called me once.
My boyfriend, though, has a severe needle phobia. It’s far beyond what I would call “hating needles,” because he has a hard time walking by syringes in a drug store and hates hospitals because somewhere in there, someone is getting a needle put in them. He can’t see images on television of needle sticks, and once when he did have to get a shot and I was with him, he turned very green and was of serious concern to the nurses.
This is a fear of needles beyond anything I can understand, so I would never begrudge him not donating blood.
I finally got over my irrational fear of needles and donated this year. It went fine, and I kicked myself for being such a weenie all these years.
They rejected me. They said their preliminary test for Hep-C was ‘inconclusive,’ even thoughI have basically no risk factors for it. I got a complete checkup from my doctor, which showed zero signs of Hep-C, which I forward to them.
I got a letter back saying that because of that one inconclusive test, I am forever ineligible to donate.
I asked them not to ‘remind’ me at all. I do not like reminders to donate anything, be it time, money or blood, for charitable purposes. This was a request they said they would honor, and they did not.
It’s not about punishing them. It’s that I want peace and quiet rather than hounded and nagged by people who think that I have some kind of obligation rather than that I was making a contribution because I wanted to.
I do not want to be nagged. The only way to stop the nagging is to not donate.
I used to donate, but now I’m on so damn many medications that I’d be surprised if they’d use my blood. Also, I have some viruses that might not be a good idea to pass along to premature babies (explanation: I’ve got type O negative blood, the universal donor, and I’ve been told by some nurses that they save that stuff for premature babies who need blood) - unless it would somehow give them immunity, in which case I guess that would be a good thing.
Maybe I should check with my (multiple) doctors about this. I liked being a blood donor (not the actual process, but the feeling of doing something good for someone else).
I have to have blood tests every six months for my cholesterol and I asked why they can get blood out (though with a maximum of hacking and stabbing). They told me the needles for donations are unusually large, to get huge gushers of blood into the bags.
