The One Where I Do Something Ostensibly Altruistic for Utterly Selfish Reasons

The one where I do something ostensibly altruistic for utterly selfish reasons, and it backfires spectacularly.  Of course.

I have given blood before.  It's a generally charitable thing to do, but does anyone ever do it for that reason alone?  There's always a little something in it for you to sweeten the deal, even if it's just a smug sense of giving your actual, most precious, critical resource to potentially save another person's life. 

Back when I was a clerk in a high school library, whenever the school hosted a blood drive, I would sign up just for an excuse to lay down for half an hour and eat some animal crackers.  It was no big deal.  Needles don't bother me in the slightest.  It got me away from my desk.  I viewed it the same way I viewed pooping at work - Hold up, am I technically getting paid to do this?  Hell yea. 

It would seem that the next logical step would be to sell my plasma, in order to make actual money in the most passive but also metal way possible.  I may have romanticized that notion a little too much thanks to the Against Me! song, We Did It All for Don.  Back in 2010 when we lived in Idaho, I was super unemployed and got really fixated on the idea of selling my blood, but alas, it never worked out.  I have never been (explicitly) paid for my blood.

Technically.

Recently, I learned that the Red Cross is so hard up for blood that they are offering free COVID-19 antibody tests for donors.  I don't know exactly how much an antibody test would cost me, but I have read that they run around $100 or more, depending on the lab.  I wanted that test.

I wanted the antibody test because I wanted to be granted magical immunity.  I know that's not even really how antibodies work in this scenario, nor have I had any symptoms or known exposure to an infected person, so this was purely wishful thinking.  Nevertheless, I wanted it badly enough to sign myself up for a donation appointment. 

Here I sit, eight days later, with a negative antibody test result (of course) and an intense rash on my inner left elbow from, I assume, that weird stretchy medical tape they use to fasten your gauze pad.  Like, guys, we have solved this problem already.  It's called a Band-Aid.  This is not necessary! 

The rash isn't super visible, so at least I don't look like a leper, but it's a constant mental effort not to claw my arm off.  Worse than the rash, though, was the experience of giving blood.  I've never had a problem before, but the phlebotomist was very put off by my allegedly tiny veins.  She had to call her supervisor over to make sure they weren't too small for the giant needle. 

Once she finally got things flowing, my blood started to clot inside the tube before the bag filled up, so they kept spinning the needle around and pushing it further up in my vein.  I'm amazed that shit wasn't poking out the back of my arm by the time they were finished.    The bag finally reached capacity and they were ready to fill the test tubes, but there was so much coagulated blood by that point that nothing else would come out.  They were legit shoving toothpicks up in the opening of the tube to try to unclog it.  I'm no doctor but that seems like...not standard procedure? 

Ultimately, they had to tap my other arm like I was gotdamn sugar maple and I had to walk around for days looking like a sad extra from Requiem for a Dream. 

My takeaways from all this:

• Maybe consider not giving blood anymore
• If I must give blood (like maybe I'm getting out of work for an hour, or there's a cool t-shirt giveaway) consider pregaming the experience by guzzling N.O.-XPLODE, the pre-workout drink that promises to "turn your veins into garden hoses"
• Don't only do things for other people when there's something in it for me