Another double work day…16 hours….sigh

I had to keep looking at the computer to remember that it was thursday. It is thursday right? Is it still March? At least the weather is nicer out this week.

Aside from work, which was boring and somewhat informative as I learned some new things, day 20 has been a painful day. Because I was going to be in town anyway, thanks to work, I donated plasma again today. The first parts of my experience were pleasant, some chatter with the receptionist as she pricked my finger to check my blood vitals (band-aid number 1) and a quick jog to the back to take a seat, is what greeted me when I settled in for the donation….

And then the unpleasant part. A jab of the needle in my right arm sent a burning sensation up through my arm and into my neck…I don’t know what the nurse was stabbing for, but she managed to kill the nerve in my arm in one swift motion….So after some bleeding and pain a bandage (2) was wrapped tightly around my arm and the nurse was quickly feeling up my left arm….

I chose my right arm for donations for many reasons.

Reason 1: It is my “strong hand” (points if you know the reference). I am a dominantly right-handed person, although I can use both sides interchangeably.  Because of this, the muscles in my right arm are more pronounced, thus making veins easier to find.

Reason 2: The pressure in my left arm is low as hell…I don’t know why, but it is.

Reason 3: My left arm gets abused enough without me getting poked by needles.

But since the nurse person botched her attempt at my right arm, wires already filled with blood were being draped over my stomach as the nurse tried for round two. This time she got it, but not without a few choice curses in both Spanish and Irish slipping from my tongue. With the blood now pumping across my stomach, I got to settle in for 45 minutes of struggling to get the damn machine to light up the proper way. I finished the procedure as normally as I could, my entire body shivering because the damn saline is room temperature (and it’s a medical facility so we all know it’s kept at arctic levels) as it is pumped into my body.

I don’t do cold. I will never visit Alaska, or Siberia, or North Dakota. I hate being cold, and I hate shivering. My friend told me one day to just stop shivering and I wanted to smack her. Apparently it is a voluntary movement. Voluntary my ass…the more I try to stop shivering, the tenser my muscles become. I’d rather shake like a leaf.

SO I’m shaking as the needle gets pulled out and the gauze misses a little bit so blood trickled onto my skin, but otherwise I was fine. Just ridiculously cold. (Band-aid number 3).

So now I’m home, with my arms cramping because my muscles were tense for almost an hour straight, and attempting to write to you. But I’m exhausted, and feeling oddly sympathetic to every single pin cushion on this planet.

Sleep is necessary, so I will bid you adieu for now.

I do encourage you to donate if you can. I get paid, but I do know that my plasma goes to people who need it…I just wish my nurse today wasn’t practicing her jousting skills.

***ADDITION***

So I have 10 minutes before I have to head to work and to say I had any decent amount of sleep would constitute me a liar…Sometimes I just reaaally hate people. My boss’ boss called me up, because the guy my boss has doing payroll, while my boss chills on some beach in florida, messed up my week and I had the delight of being woken up to fix it. While I was half asleep and dealing with some major cramping in my arms.

What the hell did this nurse do to me? I woke up to having both of my arms cramped and my fingers spasming, and I was still bleeding somewhat. It wasn’t pleasant. The bleeding has thankfully stopped, but now I have two bruises forming, which is a first for me since I have started donating. I look like some junkie right now with bruises and track marks. I look forward to explaining this to my co-workers.

Off to work my friends…only 3 more days until my next day off…and then 8 more days after that…

I just want to go back to bed. Le sigh.

Question of the day:

Who are you when no one is looking?