NFRC: You can't get blood out of a stone.

M

marilynfl

Moderator
Every eight weeks a local blood bank brings a bus to our facility to collect blood donations and every eight weeks I donate.

Today I filled out the huge questionaire and marked honestly that I had a malignant cancerous mole in 1991 while also confirming that I hadn't had sex with a prostitute or sold myself for money over the past six months.

Then I went out to the bus to give blood and the woman finalizing the paperwork asked if the "malignant cancerous mole" was cancerous.

Pausing for a moment, I finally said "Yes??" wondering why she was confirming it was "cancerous" since Question #365 specifically asked about cancer.

Then she wrote down: "No Cancer, no Radiation."

Now I'm reading this upside down, but I stopped her anyway and said: "You mean "No Chemo, No Radiation" right? (because I've been to this rodeo before.)

And she said: "No, it means you didn't have cancer."

I actually stopped her, made her correct the paperwork and change the wording to "No Chemotherapy."

Then she took my temperature, but couldn't get a reading from the thermometer.

She passed me on to the phlebotomist, who couldn't get any blood out of my left arm after poking me with a needle the size of a darning needle. So they switched me to another table where she poked the right arm with a barbeque skewer but still couldn't draw any blood.

That's when they switched me BACK to the OTHER table and called in "Martin" who is apparently The Needle Whisperer. In an attempt to increase the size of my vein, Martin put a pressure cuff on my arm and pumped it to a PSI that could potentially split atoms. Then he shoved a rusty iron spike into my already bruised arm and yet (say it with me) failed to draw blood.

That's when they gave up, slapped on a band-aid, wrapped the arm with a neon purple band and handed me a free hat.

So the moral of this story is this: if anyone tells you I'm a cold-hearted bloodless bi+ch, we now have the empirical data to prove it.

 
Oh, I'm laughing so hard it hurts. These folks must be affiliated with the

lab techs in the hospital that come in at 4:00 a.m., turn on all the lights, have to try multiple spots and leave a bruise over the entire back of your hand.

 
O.M.G Thank you for letting me roar with laughter this morning you cold hearted bloodless b*tch!! smileys/bigsmile.gif

 
TOO FUNNY! Have tears streaming down my cheeks frm laughing. This could only happen 2 U, Mar. Smile.

 
Not to be toooo serious, but maybe they meant you didn't have cancer "now" and

were also not on chemotherapy, although I think I may be giving these people too much credit! They sound like the same people that answer the phone at my insurance company! Don't you wonder how these people keep their jobs?!

Good for you though, Marilyn, for donating blood so often! I hear it temporarily lowers your blood pressure, although maybe not in this case! ha ha ha

 
I am such a wimp....

.... I started laughing, but by the time you got to Martin, I got light-headed, and had to quickly get up and move away from the computer

I don't have a problem with needles, injections, if I am the patient, but I simply cannot watch anything done to other people. And while listening (or reading) this type of stories, I have to be very careful - I passed out a few times, leaving my friends in total panic smileys/smile.gif

(and no, I am not kidding... )

 
Dawn, that is a very logical assumption, but at the past six times I've done this

they see the notation about the melanoma, ask what sort of treatment I had (removal, chemo, radiation?) annotate the information, and we continue on.

This woman asked if the mole was cancerous, I said yes, and she immediately wrote down "No cancer, no radiation." End of questions.

That's why I corrected her. I think she just got into a pattern of writing down an answer without really listening.

 
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