There's been a lot of bad blood around here recently, and I've already made most of the ancillary puns in the tags, so let me get right to my little story of freshly shed blood:
I gave again tonight, like many times before (i.e., I was stroked by the fact I couldn't give blood after 9/11 because I already had less than a month before), but tonight the fun was, I tried red cell apheresis for the first time.
Apparently, they've got two kinds of apheresis: platelet and red cell. (That short sentence is probably wrong a hundred ways, so I invite experts to revise and extend.)
In apheresis, they take the really good parts out of your blood and put the rest back.
I'd heard about platelet apheresis, which takes a couple of hours and requires they put a needle in each arm, presumably labeled "IN" and "OUT" in Latin, and show you a movie... but I'd never heard of red cell apheresis, which only takes a little longer that giving the ol' pedestrian pint, but gets you hooked up to a literally cool machine, and earns you an extra-special button to wear...
So here's how it goes, if you're ever offered the oppo:
You get to sit semi-upright, and do the requisite post-pint pizza-eating and juice-drinking WHILE you're giving the blood instead of after -- presuming you can eat and drink one-handed, which for me is no problem since I have the abandon to eat no-handed when sufficiently hungry -- so multi-taskers will be pleased.
The great thing for the Red Cross is they get two pints of red cells, instead of the usual just one when they take a pint of regular. In red cell apheresis, they take a pint, run it quickly through a filter that separates the red cells from the plasma and platelets and liquid stuff, then put the latter back into you so you stay hydrated and electrolized and all. Then they do it again. Actually, the machine does it.
The needle's actually skinnier and more comfortable than the usual, and even though it's apheresis, it only goes in one arm. It (the machine, really) takes a pint, pauses a bit, then reinjects the filtered plasma/platelet/etc. liquid the nurse showed you in the oblique bag even though it made the machine beep when she turned it, just like she predicted, back into your arm.
The plasma etc. liquid looks exactly like beer -- head and all -- so I said to the nurse "It looks like you're taking the beer right back out of me!" Upon her expression, I added "and you've undoubtedly heard that a few times already." She had.
When your plasma comes back in, it feels distinctly cool, which is nice on a hot day like this. And you come out feeling pretty charged, which happens to me anyway after giving blood (after doing it for awhile, I've come to understand why bloodletting was considered good medicine for so long), but this kind of bloodletting feels especially good.
As in, I should have gone to bed two hours ago, and I'll try now...
Anyway, I recommend it. Humans, it seems sometimes, can see only bloodshed as an answer to bloodshed (I feel it all day every day biting my muzzle, myself).
This is the best way to let it go. Just sayin'...