So I fainted today. Actually, the words "severe reaction" and "epileptic fit" were bandied about by doctors standing over me. All I know is, one minute I'm giving blood, and the next I'm being woken up with ammonia and one of the nurses has my juice all over her. Not to mention the various body fluids of mine that were in places they shouldn't have been.
All this aside, though, my trips to the Blood Bank at the National Institute of Health has been fantastic. The nurses (and even doctors) are willing to coddle me and be nice doing it, and they really know how to insert a needle into tiny, tiny veins. This is all part of my hereditary hemochromatosis (HHC) treatment: I've gotten bled every other week until the iron level in my blood got to a safe range, which took about two months. It would've taken longer, since it takes forever for my hemoglobin to get back up, but they give me a shot of epo (erythropoietin) to help rebuild it--which costs several hundred dollars each time. But all this is completely free for me, since I'm taking part in a government-funded research study on HHC. Honestly, since I'm a completely abnormal HHC patient (being not male or over 60), I really think I'm getting the better end of the bargain.
Everything was going great up until today. I had actually gotten up to the point where I could donate the full pint in under 10 minutes--which is amazing, since I'm only 100 Lbs (and have no business donating blood under normal circumstances). Then, just as I was finishing up, I felt hot and dizzy and told the nurses that I was at my limit. Apparently it was too late, and I lost a minute of consciousness. They said nothing that dramatic had happened there in a long time, and judging by the number of people moving around the room, I must have caused a lot of excitement.
So, the first time I fainted, I was donating blood in a Red Cross trailer in France (my first and last time attempting to be a volunteer donor). I weighed about the same, hadn't had any breakfast, and had been on my period. I told the volunteer nurses this, and they said I'd be fine. When I came back to consciousness, two women were slapping my face, hard, and screaming at me in a foreign language--for a full minute after regaining consciousness, I completely forgot French and had no idea where I was. They threw out my blood (since I'd only filled half the bag they claimed it was unusable), made me sit for ten minutes eating cookies, and sent me home on the city bus.
This time was completely different. The nurses laughed when I asked if they'd slapped me--apparently that's not standard procedure. They claimed they'd just screamed my name a lot and shook my shoulders (which is when my juice fell all over one of the nurses). Plus, I didn't forget English--but I had a very very limited vocabulary at first.
The NIH staff waited on me hand and foot and threatened me with an IV machine if my blood pressure didn't go up--they were checking it every five minutes. Eventually I was wheelchaired out to a hospital bed, where I was allowed to sleep for several hours, and was threatened again, this time with a government-hospital lunch until they decided I was okay to drive home.
All of this was completely free. Totally amazing. And, apart from chiding me on not having drunk enough water yesterday, they were very sweet to me the whole time.
Now I'm feeling great, apart from being exhausted and for the nasty bruise on my arm (I had the fainting/seizure/episode while the needle was still in me), and drinking lots and lots and lots of water. I'm headed out for another opportunity for dehydration: I'll be on a plane in a couple hours (6am) to San Francisco, to go to the Association of Asian Studies's annual conference this weekend. Then the 5pm-5am flight on Sunday night/Monday morning, and then back to work.
So expect sleepy West Coast stories next week. Or more likely, sleepy conference stories...