I donated blood last Tuesday, and I got the New Guy.

The New Guy spent what seemed like five minutes tapping for a vein in my left arm. Then he spent what felt like another five minutes swabbing the skin over the vein with iodine. This was when I began to worry. I try to give myself at least an hour when I give blood in case I have to wait around, and this time I only had forty minutes before I needed to be in a meeting. But there was no one else on a table or in line in front of me, so I figured I would have plenty of time.

Digression: it was a shame that no one else was there to donate. If you’re eligible, and not freaked out by needles or blood or iodine or juice or cookies, you should go. Don’t let the rest of this entry dissuade you. Really. I’m sure it was an anomaly.

So the New Guy finally gets the needle in, and I noticed that he applied the tape a little too far away from the puncture for my taste. There was a pause, and then he starts putting a blood pressure cuff on my arm. This is when he knocks the needle out.

He apologizes profusely; I reassure him profusely. He asks if we can try again in the other arm. I’m game, because I’ve already gone through the questionnaire and had my temperature and blood pressure taken and passed the iron test, but by now I’m down to less than twenty minutes before my meeting. That would be enough time if the iodine were applied more efficiently this round...

Confession: sadly, my competitive streak manifests itself even during blood donation - I’m keen on filling the bag as quickly as possible without collapsing a vein in the process. Once I even lapped a guy: he was already on the table and dripping away when I got started, and I was done and drinking juice before he was up (in your face, Clot Boy!). This time, because there was no one else around, I set out to beat my Personal Best - see below.

...which meant I had to inform the New Guy that time was of the essence. I was reluctant to do this; I knew it would make him nervous and even less proficient.

At last the needle is in, the tape is on, I’m squeezing the little foam ball with my right hand, and holding up my copy of Love in the Time of Cholera with my left (in retrospect it might have been better to bring a book without a disease in the title; for no good reason it seems oddly unsanitary). The New Guy has brought over a scale to keep track of quickly the bag is filling, and the other phlebotomists -- who, alas, have nothing else to do -- are gathered around, watching its progress and making encouraging comments. I'm not sure if they're meant for me, or the New Guy.

In any case, I've got the bag full in just under seven minutes (a new record). All the New Guy has to do is fill the little sample tubes, and I’ve got plenty of time for juice and cookies and recovery before my meeting.

Then I’m thinking, Why isn’t the New Guy filling the sample tubes? He’s already disconnected the bag - isn’t this the part with the tubes? Why is he off filling out paper work?

He comes back, with the tubes. He pops the first tube onto the line, and nothing happens. He tells me to squeeze. After a minute of squeezing, blood finally shoots into the tube.

"Looks like you lost the vacuum," says a plainly Not New Guy.

The rest of the tubes fill in a matter of seconds. The New Guy takes out the needle, puts on a bandage, and gives me an ice pack for my arm. I’ve never been given an ice pack before.

He warns me that there may be bruising. I’m not worried about it. How bad can it be?

I find out that night, when I take off the bandage. At this stage it is not so much a bruise as a couple of half inch-wide, inch-long, dark purple blood blisters. Raised skin and everything. So that’s where the blood went when it wasn’t going into the tube.

The next morning the bruise is a Technicolor drama with a four inch diameter.

Obsession: I keep poking at it, because contrary to what one would expect from a bruise of this magnitude, it doesn’t hurt. At all. Weird. [Poke, poke.]

The next evening there’s a message from Debbie at the Puget Sound Blood Center - they heard I might have had some bruising, and wanted to make sure I was okay. I think it’s very nice of them to follow up, but I also suspect they wanted to make sure they hadn’t alienated a regular donor with a semi-handy blood type (O+ -- I bet if I were O- they would have sent a card and flowers).

I don’t return the call that night, because I’m not sure what to say - I don’t want to get the New Guy in trouble, but I’m not sure he should be unleashed on people who could be first-time donors. There’s another message for me the next day, so I call back. I let them know that, yes, there was some bruising, bruising like I’d never seen before. I let them know that the New Guy was very nice, but he seem to need more practice. And I assured them I’d be back in two months.