by Charles Memminger
Monday, November 25, 1996
I'M a pint low. I've never been a pint low before. At least, not on purpose and not since I was a kid, when spilling blood was a fairly regular occurrence. Brother, can you
spare a pint?This time I'm a pint low on purpose and I'm waiting to see what effect it has. So far none. Taking a pint of blood from someone my size is kind of like taking the vermouth out of a martini.
It took months of prodding but my wife finally forced me down to the Hawaii Blood Bank to surrender a pint of my precious bodily fluid. She's an old arm at giving blood. She gives by the gallons. Blood runs in her family. Or at least FROM her family. Her dad has filled more barrels than OPEC.
Giving blood is a good thing. It's a needed thing. And it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time. The fact that I didn't give blood until I began closing in on my 43rd birthday tells you something about my desire to give blood vs. the reality of giving. It took a while to psychologically prepare myself.
The main thing was I had to separate the act of giving blood from the act of bleeding. I hate bleeding and always have. It's one of the things I hate worse than just about anything else. Except pain. Pain and bleeding, those are the biggies. In my mind, giving blood was simply bleeding profusely into a plastic bag.
But I got by that. Mainly because I started to feel guilty. I'm a big guy. I've got lots a blood. Why am I hogging it? Especially since it takes 200 donors A DAY to meet Hawaii's blood needs.
That doesn't sound like much. Two hundred. But you gotta figure, a person can only give blood every eight weeks. That means there needs to be at least 11,200 DIFFERENT people giving blood over that eight-week period. Now, that's a lot.
And so, faced with the shame of being married to a woman who is a veritable fountain of blood donorship and the fact that more than a few of my friends and family have needed blood over the years, I went down at lunch the other day to be tapped.
IT turns out it's not a big deal, really. You fill out some forms. They want to make sure you aren't carrying any infectious diseases, like HIV or hepatitis. They poke your finger with a sharp gizmo that doesn't hurt as much as it surprises. They take a few drops of blood to make sure you have enough iron.
Then they lead you to the comfy reclining chairs and and hook you up like a high-fi stereo. It's really anti-climactic. It doesn't hurt. If you don't watch what's going on, you'll think the guy is just taking your pulse or something. The pint bag fills in about 5 to 8 minutes, depending on, I don't know, how much blood you've been hoarding. Since I haven't given blood for 42 years, mine simply shot out and I filled the bag before I could get through the first few pages of Newsweek magazine.
Then they unhitch you, plug the puka with a piece of gauze and a bandage and that's it.
I know, I'm sounding like one of those guys from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "It's OK. It doesn't hurt. You'll be fine. You'll be one of us."
But it's true. It doesn't hurt. You will be fine. And you will be one of us. See? Now I'm one of them. I'm a blood giver. I don't have to feel guilty now around the holidays when I hear those pleas by the Hawaii Blood Bank for more donors. It's a sad but accurate fact that more blood is needed during the holidays than just about any other time.
So, all you people under 110 pounds, you're off the hook. You're a little too light to give blood. But the rest of you wusses, the people who have never given blood before, call the Hawaii Blood Bank and make an appointment. You'll miss one lunch but you might save a couple of lives.
If I can do it, you can. It's all right to be a pint low during the holidays. In fact, it's the best present you can give.
