Ix-Nay on the Onor-Day!

That's pig-Latin for SHOOT ME IF I SAY I WANT TO DONATE BLOOD AGAIN. I donated blood yesterday and I will never, never, never, never, never do it again. Not even if I was the last O+ on the planet and tiny cute baby apes needed my blood in order to survive.

Since the last time, when my best shirt got totally splattered with blood, you think I would have learned my lesson, but apparently I didn't. Maybe it's like childbirth? Where you swear you will never go through that again but then you forget? Maybe I just have blood donor amnesia?

Well, I popped in there because they had called and asked me to donate. I figured it would take about an hour and then I could eat the hot nachos that I love so much and be on my way. I had people to see, places to be.

I requested that she try to get blood out of my left arm this time because my right one is tired, but she punctured the vein and had to start over. Then, after taking about 1/4 of a bag full she noticed I was bruising really badly so she pulled it and started over on my right arm. I don't know if that attributed to what happened, if that just put me over the limit of too much blood loss, but as soon as she got the pint of blood and I went over to the snack bar, I noticed I wasn't feeling so well. I felt way too drained and kind of disassociated from the world.

I was sitting between two burly men who were talking WAY too loudly about how tough they were and I just wanted them to SHUT UP! SHUT UP I SAY! But rather than make a scene I just got up from the snack bar and headed for the door.

I remember walking past the receptionist area, and realizing that I needed to sit down. Always the polite Midwesterner, I said chattily to the girls standing there, "Oh, I think I'll just sit down for a minute." But by then the entire world went away. It just went away.

I became aware of someone saying, "cough!" Can you Cough? I didn't know who there were addressing and I didn't think it was me. What would I need to cough for? It dawned on me that my forehead was being slapped with wet towels and about 4 or 5 people were hovering over me asking me my name and trying to get me to wake up.

they got me onto this chair that then reclined into a gurney, and I was whisked into the little emergency room they have right there at the blood bank. The next hour and a half I spent with my feet higher than my head, with ice packs on my neck and forehead, and hot packs on my feet and abdomen, with my vital signs being taken every fifteen minutes. They couldn't read my pulse and they couldn't get a blood pressure reading, either. They kept pouring water and juice down my throat and talking to me like crazy.

Since I have a cast iron stomach I never felt the least bit nauseous, but I was so ill feeling in general it was an AWFUL experience to black out like that. I just kept thinking about how it must feel to die, with your whole life draining away from blood loss until your heart can't handle it and it explodes.

Cheery, huh?

I told those women I was going to blog about this and they begged me not to tell the part where they tried to sit me up but the chair hadn't latched and I went slamming back down into the reclining position. Lucky for them I am totally mellow and not one to fuss and throw hissy fits while half dead on a gurney.

Finally, the Head Honcho Nurse came in and said, "This is taking too long! She should have been gone by now! Either start saline solution RIGHT NOW or call 911!" Oh, THAT made my heart race, let me tell you! I thought, SHEESH! I COULD JUST GO INTO CARDIAC ARREST, HERE, AND NEVER LEARN THE FATE OF PARIS HILTON!

So my pulse went from 58 right up to 80 and then they were worried some more. But eventually they let me sit up, use the restroom, walk around the facility a little bit, and finally I was released to come home.

So that was Miss Pink Ponsonby's Freaky Friday adventure.