Bloodletting
Adventures in donating blood - apparently I'm the first person to ever ask if I could have it back
In 2007, I took a job working at THE Colorado College in THE admission office, landing me back on the campus where I had lived for four years as an undergrad and immersing me in the commune-like-community of a small liberal arts college. The experience was great and terrible, as all things are, and came with regular invitations to donate blood. Just walk 100 yards to the building next door, roll up your sleeve, and save lives! I tried every year, and was rejected each time because I did not meet the minimum weight requirement. Like a small dog who thinks she's a big dog, my obstinance had a few things to say about this, and no one took audience, so her commentary rolled around inside the four walls of my mind.
Aside from routine physicals, I have never weighed myself. I did not own a scale until we got a puppy, and needed to weigh her weekly. If you’ve never tried to weigh a skittish puppy, the best way to do so is holding her and weighing your combined weight, then putting her down and subtracting your weight. So in the fall of 2019, I saw my weight up and down a bit each week, with very little to write home about. It was what it always was, as far as I could recall.
Then, the thing happened.
My person got sick and needs a liver, and the very cool thing about livers, is that live donors can contribute a little more than half of theirs and the damn thing regrows in less than six weeks. Did you know this? When you donate a sizeable bit of your liver, within six weeks it's as big and jolly as it was, and you just have a super cool scar and major braging rights.
My person and I are a type match, but again, I am too small. I can’t donate more than 60% of my liver, and he’s twice my size, so even my 60% isn’t sufficient. This is a painful realization and a relief simultaneously. I don’t have the burden of making the decision, because the decision is outside of my hands. Those of us who prefer to control everything are often disappointed (and possibly filled with rage) in these circumstances.
He then needed oodles of units of blood, plus various blood products over his 35 day stay in the hospital, and I was so grateful that they had what they needed to give him the best chances to survive, because he needed the everything.
Months after his stay, I was chatting with a friend who came to visit me at the hospital in those days. Once, she brought me cookies her mom made, and another time we walked around the perimeter of the hospital with a borrowed dog. I remember feeling 100% blind-rage-crazy on both occasions, soothed by nothing but aware of my gratitude for those moments when social distance from humans was paramount, and friends did what they could with material gifts and acts of service and words. On the phone call after-the-fact she told me that her mother was a regular blood donor, and that she was notified that her blood was used the night that my person needed all those units of blood.
Did you know this is a thing? Donors these days get a little bonus reassurance that their effort was worthwhile. It's like a read receipt on your karmic message in a bottle. For all of the gripes we have about technology, this feels like one of the miracles it makes possible.
“What is your person’s blood type?” She asked me on the phone.
I almost blurted back. I'm **quite** the contestant on health-facts-about-my-person’s-health Jeopardy. But I caught myself.
“I don’t want to tell you.” I responded.
“Is that weird? I’d like to keep the magic alive... imagine that of course it was her blood that helped him make it through the third day of Christmas.”
She agreed.
And so we pretend, because there is medicine in that magic for all of us.
And I believe in both medicine and magic, with all of my heart.
Last week - back in week one of my sabbatical - I went to the GYN for a quick check under the hood. It had been some time, because of COVID and other attentions, and it was hard. The waiting room is full of bellies and partners, and wistful smiles and jolly hopeful people. I both love the miracle of pregnancy and will fight to the death to support the positive experience of pregnant people and simultaneously get lost in the panic of pity when I realize I’m forty and there to make sure that what ails me isn’t also going to kill me, while they are there Pinterest-ing baby shower ideas, and combing through lists of potential names, and celebrating.
A consequence of visiting the doctor’s office is the weigh-in. It makes very little sense to me that they do not ask you to disrobe first, as I was wearing boots, a bulky sweater, and a fanny pack, but the number on the scale was… er… Very Different. More different than boots and belts and sweaters. It made sense, given that much of my clothing no longer fits correctly, even though my weight has been The Friggin Same Since 1996, and I had feelings about this, many of which are private.
But the one that matters here, is that it was above the threshold to donate blood.
So yesterday I went. I wore the same sweater and boots and fanny pack, and made it through the screening and the hematocrit, the blood pressure and the weigh-in, and I donated blood. You sign many forms, including that your blood may not be used for a number of reasons, and apparently I’m the only one on earth to ask if I could have it back if it wasn’t usable by others (the answer is no, but said with an incredulous face).
As I sat there, I watched clouds kiss the mountain, squeezed a little heart-shaped squeeze ball, and imagined that the darkness was pouring out of me - bound for the cosmic recycler, the filter machine, and ready to be the missing piece in the rebirth of someone whose story I'll never know. I looked around the room at the people in the other donation chairs, mostly older men wearing vests, donating plasma. In my head, plasma is varsity donation because it takes a long time, and because in the time of COVID, convalescent plasma is gold. I wondered what their stories were, and how many lives they had touched. We don't often get to connect these dots, but the magic I felt sitting among these sainted men reminded me of the thread that connected the gift of my friend's mother to the ressurection of my person.
I don’t know what to do about my feelings about the number on the scale, or the fit of various pairs of pants, but unless I’m told otherwise, I’ll make lemonade about it. Save a life. Be part of a story I'll (probably) never hear.
Thanks for reading,
K
PS: I am not in fact gaming the system - they have lowered the weight limit by five pounds since my days at Colorado College, and I have weighed myself buck-ass-nekked and confirmed that I do meet the guidelines to donate and am not endangering myself.
PPS: I'm so hungry. People told me they sometimes felt fatigued after donating, and I haven't, but whoa buddy was I hungry right after and ever since, with very specific cravings. Thanks, #mysweetbody, for letting me know what I need.