Monday, December 05, 2005

The Bleeding Machine...

I gave blood today, plateletts to be exact. There is this crazy machine that takes your blood, spins it around a little, takes out what it wants and repumps the blood back into the same vein. It's crazy, and you can feel your blood flow change slightly as they pump the blood back into you.

After the guy stuck me and moved the needle around trying to get it set right and continually asking, "does this hurt?" (to which I wanted to reply, but refrained, "No, you're just moving a Goddamned needle around inside my arm!") he left.

There were two machines, one was spinning still, but there was no patient around, and the other was mine. The second machine made a noise like it was dropping its transmission and then sputtered to a stop. I looked at it wide eyed as a trickle of blood began to drip out of the bottom corner. Suddenly the two bags of IV fluid, which I'm pretty sure was just saline solution, drained at a rapid rate and were empty. I looked back down and suddenly it looked as though this machine had been shot...

Thick red blood began to pool underneath it and was dripping from all kinds of crevices I hadn't even seen. The guy who had poked me noticed it and opened the machine which looked like the back seat of the car in pulp fiction...there was blood everywhere.

He grabbed some paper towels and began to wipe it up...suddenly I realized how futile it would be to try and clean up the blood if I were to shoot someone...that crap is thick as hell and leaves all kinds of stains.

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