I recently had the opportunity to donate blood for the second time in my life. And for some reason it brought back memories of how my blood donation saga started...and like a good blogger I decided t fulfill my duty towards fellow bloggers and blogdom in general by sharing....so here goes....
I am one of those people who has always been fascinated by blood. Now before you start thinking that I am some kinda psychopath in the making...lemme clear the air...my dad's a blood donor..has been for as long as I can remember...so naturally I wanted to be one myself. Tawt it was a pretty noble thing(noble = guaranteed to impress anyone). So one fine day I decided to get my blood type checked so I could embark on this path of nobility.
At the path lab, the kind(kind = irritatingly sweet-talking) nurse told me to look away as she drew blood so lil ol' me wudn't be frightened. Resisting the urge to tell her off with tales of my bravado I smiled sweetly and said "Its ok...I'm not scared". She looked at me like I was some kind of war-veteran...and with a "you are soooo brave" look started drawing blood. It wasn't smooth sailing as she couldn't find a vein properly...(this inspite of the fact that the veins in my arm can be seen from the moon). Each time she pricked my arm and couldn't find the vein, she seemed to be begging God for forgiveness for scarring an angel like me. Finally she got the bloody vein and as I watched the blood leave my arm I was filled with a kind of wonder...the colour and viscosity of the blood made me swell up with pride. I was filled with a "I have the prettiest blood in the whole world" emotion. Was actually sad having to leave such a wondrous thing with Sister-Sympathy....
A couple of days later, the verdict was out. I was an O+....now I could happily go around donating blood helter-skelter....but it was not to be. I didn't get my first chance until almost another year passed by...my company had organised a blood donation camp. All my batch mates kept talking and discussing it for days and finally we decided that our collective bravado could get us thru....so off we went...
Our entry into the camp coincided with a girl fainting a la-Scarlett post-donation. As we trembled our way inside, a few more knees gave away and we were petrified (the fainting phenomenon was later credited to October heat and getting up too soon...etc etc). But we kept moving and got thru till the part where the actual needle entered the picture. I actually missed Sister-Sympathy as I saw Sister-Dont-mess-wid-me walking purposefully towards me...she picked up my arm like a piece of fresh meat about to bitten into...and she went about pumping it to find the famously elusive vein...after a couple of attempts she stopped....snarled at me and walked away...fighting all my feelings of rejection and abandonment I was about to call out to her when she strode over to my other side and picked up my other arm. Her eyes gleamed with a manic glow as she saw what she was looking for....one jab...and I had officially become a donor.
We walked out o the camp into the sunlight like survivors of a horrendous battle....and for the next few weeks we went around telling anyone with an open ear how brave we were....
Time passed by and it was donation camp time again...this time the scene looked better due to the definite absence of "the fainters". A classic case of we went., we donated, we gobbled the free goodies...all in a span of 15 mins.. The only obstacle being the guy who checks you out in the beginning to ensure that you are a healthy donor.He Was normal enuf except for the obsession with the weight machine. He asked everyone to stand on the scale as part of the check-up and took sadistic pleasure in almost-shouting the weight of each person...now being a girl..a normal-weight girl that is...I was a lil apprehensive bout having my weight declared publicly by the ghoul. So i hopped on and ff the scale in a flash to prevent the scale from wandering off into unwanted areas. He somehow sensed this and hollered out my weight not once, not twice but thrice. I'm sure the people at the end of the world must have heard it too. I valiantly tried to save face by hurrying off to complete my form and collect the blood bags. The form-female as sympathetic and nodded quietly when she asked and filled out my weight...I took my revenge by donating 350ml at the speed of light and scampered the hell out of there...
It was it wasn't until the next day that I noticed the gaping hole and the big ugly blue-black mark on my arm...I thought it would go away soon but I noticed an aunty in the bus giving me ugly stares as though the bruise on my arm was a confession of some clandestine drug-addiction not a medal of bravery for a noble cause..she even pulled her precious (and piggish looking) kid close to her in a bollywood fashion as though I was the plague...so on returning home I applied cream, powder, etc...I scrubbed the bruise till it went from blue to red...but no use...I resigned myself to my fate and decided that the path to nobility was indeed difficult....but worthwhile.
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