A Rush of Blood

Have you ever had a dream about someone that was kind of…naughty? And then you see them the next day and you can’t really look them in the eye because you’re having graphic flashbacks from your dream?

Yeah, I’m having that problem today. And I’m not even interested in him that way (not to mention he’s only 21—no offense to you youngins out there). But he’s a cute guy, and we chat fairly regularly…but not like that. And it’s making me flustered. And it’s not helping that he keeps coming in my office. Damn dreams.




ANYWAY, what’s new? My blogging seems to have slowed, but then others have been slowing, too. Is it just that time of year?

I went and saw Children of Men on Friday and h-o-l-y s-h-i-t. That movie is intense. My friends and I were sitting there tense the whole time and then even after the movie we were so stricken and horrified that we had to go down the street and get some gelato. Wow. Great movie. I think I might buy that one.



And A/B, I had to laugh at your comment on my previous post because I did go shoe shopping! Haha! I only bought one pair, though. Just ONE. But then again…Spring Break’s not over yet…


So I donated blood on Friday, which was lovely because I haven’t been able to go in a long time. I was on antibiotics for most of the last year because of the Sinus Fiasco, so I couldn’t donate. Not to mention I wasn’t healthy so they wouldn’t have wanted my O-Positive Lovelyness anyway.

But there’s a new system called Double-Red Cell Donation, where instead of donating a pint of whole blood, they hook you up to an apheresis machine and take just your red blood cells. Red blood cells are the part most often needed in blood transfusions for sick people, so in theory, you can help two people from one donation instead of just one.

The apheresis machine separates the red blood cells from the plasma using a centrifuge that rotates at like a bazillion rpms. It was really fascinating. You can actually watch your plasma go into a bag as it spins! Then the red blood cells collected go into another bag, and the plasma is put back in your body with some saline. Then they do it again to get the other half of the red blood cells.

The plasma was pretty cool. It’s like a clearish liquid—she said mine was a good color and that she could tell I “didn’t eat cheesecake the night before, and that I have low cholesterol.” This was funny, actually, because I had eaten cheesecake the night before! Haha! It also had a very faint green tinge to it, to which she said, “you must be on hormones—birth control?” It was crazy that you can tell that much about a person by their blood’s plasma!

Anyway, the procedure did take a while, and it’s not without slight complications. When the saline/plasma goes back into your body, it makes your whole arm cold. It was weird. By the second time that they did it, I got really cold and actually had to sit with a blanket for a while. The other thing that happens is that you can become calcium deficient, and your lips go numb! They fix this by giving you Tums (yes, the antacid stuff) because they have calcium in them.

It was pretty damn cool.

And I saved two lives. So there!