I Fail At Life
Oct. 11th, 2006 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaI fail at life.
So, I decide to try my hand at the blood drive, again. At dinner, I had some catfish nuggets, potatoes, steamed vegetables, an ice-cream sundae, and milk. I decide that is healthy-- they recommend eating things like fish, potatoes, and leafy-green vegetables (Where's my spinach??? Oh, how I miss it, so . . . ). Amazingly, I had been happening to drink water-- and even some Coke Zero, lol-- all day-- which is totally unsual, for me! So-- with the help of the encouragement of Keith and Henry :-P-- I resolve to give some blood.
After this dinner, I return to my room to finish up the remaining of the evening's homework, in case of my being too exhausted (or even endangered) by the night's events. I finish up my Murasaki Shikibu project, and two Japanese worksheets (They didn't even post the Kanji Practice Sheets until 8:00 pm! Failures! Lol . . . ). I watch an episode of Lost with Keith and Henry as I do them (the worksheets, not the boys-- oh, sentence structure . . . ), even though I can barely follow it, having seen only two or three or so episodes of it during my lifetime, probably from the first or second season-- reruns, over the summer, a few years ago, or something . . . So, then, at about 9:00, I down a rice-krispy treat, and I'm off to give blood.
I go in and I'm polite and cheerful. I'm sort of hot, as we have an ARCTIC FRONT (OF DOOM), according to Joe (seriously, it smells like Christmas outside . . . ), and I have on my big-ass, kushy-and-oh-so-warm Birch Lake sweatshirt-- which I don't take off as I arrive, for minimal carry-age as I traverse from station to station throughout the blood drive room, in Wohl (Friedman Lounge). I get a free t-shirt, point-blank (I now have two or three O.o . . . I fail life!!!). I answer their initial questions and all that goodness about my height and weight, and get my temperature (warning sign-- 99 degrees F?) and blood pressure taken. Then, they test my hematocrit (iron count . . . thingy . . . ). They prick my finger and stick it in the centrifuge, and test it, and . . .
I am positive. I have 38% hematocrit. The lower cusp is 38%. I am in.
I go to the next station. It is a computer at which I must stand up, with headphones on, to answer questions read/visualized to me. So I am going along, answering "no" to the things like, "Have you ever slept with a man who slept (including oral, anal, and intercourse) with a man who slept (including oral, anal, and intercourse) with a donkey who lived in Ecuador and contracted AIDs between the years of 1970 and 1991?"
As I'm going along, however, I start to get very, very hot. I feel rather tired; however, I've felt rather tired the whole time I've been there. I wish I would have drank more water, on the way-- or brought some with me. I take off my sweatshirt, and drop it to the floor. The questions start repeating themselves; I am not even answering them anymore . . .
(Apparently I took off the headphones, looked up, went purely white-- the guy at one of the blood-giving stations said my face "just went out like a light bulb"-- and then just slumped over. One of the nurses ran over to catch me and soften my fall; she made it . . . ).
I don't remember any of this, at least not particularly clearly. I suppose I did do it; it sounds right. Anyway, I'm laid over onto my back, and given ice packs on the back of my neck and upon the top of my forehead. All the nurses are over around me; only one other girl is giving blood, and so I am the center of attention. Only 50% of the people in the room are capable of giving blood. What kind of freak passes out before giving blood? I am a failure.
They get me over to a couch, and let me sit, and bring me some water. I'm thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed. I don't want to eat their food, but they make me; I have some peanut-butter crackers. The nurses rotate to sit beside me as other donators process in-- two or three, I think . . . a boy and a girl . . .
I apologize over and over again for not being able to donate, and they all assure me it's fine (I know I disappointed them, though . . . ). They tell me that they only care about my health and safety (I clearly cannot donate, now). They repeatedly ask me if I have eaten today; I repeat that yes, yes, yes, I have had a full dinner, and a snack of a rice-krispy treat right before I came.
I really don't know what came over me. I am not afraid of needles. I am not afraid of blood. Hell, I did spend an hour have a foot's worth of pickline IV shoved wholeheartedly resisting into me, while three or four nurses banged on my veins to stop them spazzing, sopping up the blood with paper towels (and I just distracted myself by watching "The Wild Thornberries"-- sure, it was painful, but I clearly lived, and didn't pass out!!!); I get bloody noses all the time, I am not particularly put off by vomit, and I've even squished around with bags of my own pus coming out of my abdomen. Unless I have some weird episode Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, in which all those memories of terrible blood-needles-pain incidents came running back to me in flashback-floods which I cannot remember during that period of time during which I fainted, I don't really know how to explain this. I was hot, yes; I also may have been very surprised at actually having gotten into the blood donation center. Perhaps, deep down, I was expecting to be turned away, and the excitement and stress got too much for me-- and perhaps I started visualizing it, more, and got psyched out.
Anyway, I returned to the guys' suite and relayed the story to Keith, both laughing and crying at the same time. When I told Patricia, she told me I was pathetic (which, well, was my feeling, too . . . ), and "very 1800s." (Kristina, why is it that you can give blood, and I can't?)
So I guess I've fainted for the first time; I didn't just have the outsides of my range vison blur in around the edges circularly and then cut back out to clarity just before I passed out (as in the time when I had blood drawn during one of the first few days following my appendix's actual rupture-- which set me off so much I did almost pass out, if Mom hadn't been paying attention to my running repeatedly into walls and swaying, and forcing me to sit down . . . ).
So, I decide to try my hand at the blood drive, again. At dinner, I had some catfish nuggets, potatoes, steamed vegetables, an ice-cream sundae, and milk. I decide that is healthy-- they recommend eating things like fish, potatoes, and leafy-green vegetables (Where's my spinach??? Oh, how I miss it, so . . . ). Amazingly, I had been happening to drink water-- and even some Coke Zero, lol-- all day-- which is totally unsual, for me! So-- with the help of the encouragement of Keith and Henry :-P-- I resolve to give some blood.
After this dinner, I return to my room to finish up the remaining of the evening's homework, in case of my being too exhausted (or even endangered) by the night's events. I finish up my Murasaki Shikibu project, and two Japanese worksheets (They didn't even post the Kanji Practice Sheets until 8:00 pm! Failures! Lol . . . ). I watch an episode of Lost with Keith and Henry as I do them (the worksheets, not the boys-- oh, sentence structure . . . ), even though I can barely follow it, having seen only two or three or so episodes of it during my lifetime, probably from the first or second season-- reruns, over the summer, a few years ago, or something . . . So, then, at about 9:00, I down a rice-krispy treat, and I'm off to give blood.
I go in and I'm polite and cheerful. I'm sort of hot, as we have an ARCTIC FRONT (OF DOOM), according to Joe (seriously, it smells like Christmas outside . . . ), and I have on my big-ass, kushy-and-oh-so-warm Birch Lake sweatshirt-- which I don't take off as I arrive, for minimal carry-age as I traverse from station to station throughout the blood drive room, in Wohl (Friedman Lounge). I get a free t-shirt, point-blank (I now have two or three O.o . . . I fail life!!!). I answer their initial questions and all that goodness about my height and weight, and get my temperature (warning sign-- 99 degrees F?) and blood pressure taken. Then, they test my hematocrit (iron count . . . thingy . . . ). They prick my finger and stick it in the centrifuge, and test it, and . . .
I am positive. I have 38% hematocrit. The lower cusp is 38%. I am in.
I go to the next station. It is a computer at which I must stand up, with headphones on, to answer questions read/visualized to me. So I am going along, answering "no" to the things like, "Have you ever slept with a man who slept (including oral, anal, and intercourse) with a man who slept (including oral, anal, and intercourse) with a donkey who lived in Ecuador and contracted AIDs between the years of 1970 and 1991?"
As I'm going along, however, I start to get very, very hot. I feel rather tired; however, I've felt rather tired the whole time I've been there. I wish I would have drank more water, on the way-- or brought some with me. I take off my sweatshirt, and drop it to the floor. The questions start repeating themselves; I am not even answering them anymore . . .
(Apparently I took off the headphones, looked up, went purely white-- the guy at one of the blood-giving stations said my face "just went out like a light bulb"-- and then just slumped over. One of the nurses ran over to catch me and soften my fall; she made it . . . ).
I don't remember any of this, at least not particularly clearly. I suppose I did do it; it sounds right. Anyway, I'm laid over onto my back, and given ice packs on the back of my neck and upon the top of my forehead. All the nurses are over around me; only one other girl is giving blood, and so I am the center of attention. Only 50% of the people in the room are capable of giving blood. What kind of freak passes out before giving blood? I am a failure.
They get me over to a couch, and let me sit, and bring me some water. I'm thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed. I don't want to eat their food, but they make me; I have some peanut-butter crackers. The nurses rotate to sit beside me as other donators process in-- two or three, I think . . . a boy and a girl . . .
I apologize over and over again for not being able to donate, and they all assure me it's fine (I know I disappointed them, though . . . ). They tell me that they only care about my health and safety (I clearly cannot donate, now). They repeatedly ask me if I have eaten today; I repeat that yes, yes, yes, I have had a full dinner, and a snack of a rice-krispy treat right before I came.
I really don't know what came over me. I am not afraid of needles. I am not afraid of blood. Hell, I did spend an hour have a foot's worth of pickline IV shoved wholeheartedly resisting into me, while three or four nurses banged on my veins to stop them spazzing, sopping up the blood with paper towels (and I just distracted myself by watching "The Wild Thornberries"-- sure, it was painful, but I clearly lived, and didn't pass out!!!); I get bloody noses all the time, I am not particularly put off by vomit, and I've even squished around with bags of my own pus coming out of my abdomen. Unless I have some weird episode Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, in which all those memories of terrible blood-needles-pain incidents came running back to me in flashback-floods which I cannot remember during that period of time during which I fainted, I don't really know how to explain this. I was hot, yes; I also may have been very surprised at actually having gotten into the blood donation center. Perhaps, deep down, I was expecting to be turned away, and the excitement and stress got too much for me-- and perhaps I started visualizing it, more, and got psyched out.
Anyway, I returned to the guys' suite and relayed the story to Keith, both laughing and crying at the same time. When I told Patricia, she told me I was pathetic (which, well, was my feeling, too . . . ), and "very 1800s." (Kristina, why is it that you can give blood, and I can't?)
So I guess I've fainted for the first time; I didn't just have the outsides of my range vison blur in around the edges circularly and then cut back out to clarity just before I passed out (as in the time when I had blood drawn during one of the first few days following my appendix's actual rupture-- which set me off so much I did almost pass out, if Mom hadn't been paying attention to my running repeatedly into walls and swaying, and forcing me to sit down . . . ).
