‘Be Nice to Me, I Gave Blood Today’
Why we talk about blood donation in the language of altruism
There is a TV, but mostly I just watch my blood. It travels from a needle stuck in the crook of my right elbow, the arm with better veins, into a tube, down into the clear bag that is being hugged by a cradle that rocks, then jerks, agitating its contents, stopping the clotting. Rock and wiggle. Rock, then wiggle.
I am giving away almost a pint, and it feels like it always does: soothing and calming. I watch the bag fill with this red rich liquid, which amounts to 13 percent of my blood supply. I am comforted to know that nine pints — eight, now — of this stuff is moving around my body at any time at two to three miles per hour, taking oxygen to my organs and tissues, removing carbon dioxide, keeping my heart going, keeping me going.
People have different rates of flow, so the machine beeps with alarm when the output is too low. Today, mine has been acceptable. Once, my veins were judged too small and the National Health Service Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) turned me away, and I was insulted, as if the rejection were moral, not medical. For a material that has been studied for thousands of years, blood still manages to run from rationality, even at walking pace.
