Bleeding

The new post counter thing on the Blogger Dashboard shows that the last post was the eighty-eighth one. How auspicious =)

And to be sure today has been fun. Main highlight: donated blood for the first time. It is actually far less painful than having a tooth extracted, indeed, less painful than that pricking thing that they do to get blood to test for haemoglobin. The doctor was a nice chap, rather kindly explaining what I needed to know about the process, and the anaesthetic was really effective. That was the biggest needle I'd ever seen, and it went in like a fork into a cheesecake. Yep, dehumanising the process (or psychic distancing) helps =P

The male nurse was quite nice too. Was making jokes with him when he gave me the "crucial things you need to know about blood donation" pamphlet, Chinese version =P And then...

HE: Inform us immediately if you're dizzy or lightheaded.

ME: If I'm unresponsive, feel free to help me anyway.

It must be the prospect of sustained bleeding, impairing my sense of judgment =P And then the doctor came back to check on this other girl in the next seat.

HE: You need to keep squeezing the ball. Your blood has stopped flowing.

SHE: *flabbergasted* How will squeezing the ball help?

HE: It shifts the blood around (or something like that, it was in medical parlance), we just need to get the blood out of the arm.

SHE: Then there's internal bleeding?!

HE: No, no, no internal bleeding. The blood flow just stopped.

I was tempted to give a running commentary about the state of the blood flow, but the doctor had told me to keep my head on the bed. So there I was, grinning like an idiot at everything that moved, happily squeezing that blue ball and bleeding away serenely, and trying my best not to sneeze because I thought that the sudden movement would dislodge the needle and send blood squirting like the incandescent plumes of the Musical Fountain.

Like many other things, the biggest challenge is psychological. Seeing those needles lying all over the place with the knowledge that soon they'll be sticking into you does create much fear in me. I guess that's my illogical phobia, the fear of needles. Or the fear of stabbing, as the case may be. But surprisingly enough, the propaganda posters they set up in school were true; the most painful part was the prick for the haemoglobin test. And there's the feeling that you're doing something noble, somehow touching someone else's life, many other people's lives. Maybe there's a touch of ego too, the notion that fluid from your own body will be flowing in the body of another. Bodily imperialism, and an anonymous intimacy. Us sharing our blood with strangers. Our blood flowing in others' veins. Blood is thicker than water, and so on.

I can't say yet that I'm over my fear of needles...but that was much better than what I actually thought, frankly. Heh, and having the repeat donors Ben Woon and Yongge for company did help lots, I think =P They do have the niftiest ways of breaking tension. At any rate, I'd like to thank them for bearing with my nervous prattle. They are right, peer pressure does help you to overcome the psychological barriers. When you're looking at your friends as you bleed, the urge to scream suddenly becomes controllable =P

But I have to say that the lightheadedness hasn't passed yet. There is, as I told Jes on the way to the MRT, the lingering sense that I've lost something...and anyway, I actually am lighter, now that I'm missing a bag of blood. But I do think that my thinking was impaired...loss of blood has the same kind of effect as getting drunk, I guess, because you're more impulsive, and less inhibited. I don't know how much I was thinking when I came out of that room. Luckily there wasn't anything like Lit S or Hist S to do, and the school day had ended. Heh, and I trust that my friends will pardon the slip in view of the greater cause of saving lives =P

* * * * *

Tomorrow will almost certainly finish before twelve, cos both S paper classes have been cancelled. And there may be an outing that night to watch Ballet Under the Stars, but due to reasons of bad coordination we haven't been able to confirm whether our tickets have been bought. Ah well, at any rate I think I'll come home after school. Just to have a glimpse again of what the house looks like when it's two o'clock =P

pondered by phoenican @ 14.7.05