When the needle went in my right arm, I had a brief moment of panic. "We're in!" I whispered to my veins as we headed for the row of luxurious chairs reserved for plasma donors. My blood had rallied with a late surge of iron, like a track star finding another gear in the last lap. I cursed myself for not having steak at breakfast, but a second reading put me at 39 percent. On first draw, I weighed in around 35 percent, flirting with anemia. The blood bank requires a minimum of 38 percent iron in your blood. On this day, my only hurdle was iron level. "Since 1980," one question asked, "have you received an injection of bovine insulin made from cattle in the United Kingdom?" Other questions are quite personal, involving your sex life and illicit drug use. It's long, and some of the questions are strange. If you're going to give blood, you should be prepared for this questionnaire. Before getting to the giving chair, you've got to "pass" a few routine tests (temperature, blood pressure, pulse, iron level) and answer an elaborate questionnaire. There are plenty of disqualifying factors, I learned. My plasma was to be drawn through an elaborate process called plasmapheresis, or apheresis. Of the 38 percent of Americans eligible to donate, only 8 percent do - and even fewer donate more than once a year. Plasma, which can be frozen, has a shelf life of one year, but is usually sent out to patients within days, because relatively few people donate it. While half a million people donated in the weeks after September 11, 2001, that overabundant supply was short-lived - red cells, which do not stand up to being frozen, keep for only about 30 days. Doctors use plasma, an essential building block in blood clotting, for hemophilia emergencies, accidents or surgery involving severe bleeding, and cases of liver failure.Įven during times of unprecedented donation, blood is at a premium. But my plasma - the liquid and protein in blood - was special. Only those with AB-positive blood could receive them. My red cells - what you give in a standard blood donation, and what I'd given before - were virtually useless, Dennis explained. The vast majority of people are either O-positive or A-positive, so most other people can receive their red cells in a transfusion. (Plasma, which is 90 percent water, makes up 55 percent of your blood, and they were going to take a lot of it out of me.)Īnyone can donate plasma, but most people make better whole blood donors. I walked out the door feeling like a celebrity, and spent the weekend psyching up and hydrating like a marathon runner. Rather, I was being asked to fill a spot on their all-star donor roster, and they signed me up for a plasma donation appointment the following Monday. This means you're a universal plasma donor: Your plasma can be used to help any patient in need." "Only four percent of people are AB-positive. "Were you aware you have AB-positive blood?" Blood Centers of the Pacific Technician Dennis Crader asked me.
But the truth, it turned out, was much better.
I'd been disqualified for my lack of fortitude during previous blood givings, and I'd be unceremoniously sent away. This time, when I approached the front desk, I learned that my name had been flagged. His smile dropped when he saw me lying prone, a cold compress on my forehead, my face as white as the side of the blood bank truck. The next time, three years ago, I nearly fainted at a blood drive a friend had organized. The first time I'd donated blood, 10 years earlier in my high school gymnasium, I found myself breathing into a paper bag after a fit of hyperventilation. History was not my ally when I entered Blood Centers of the Pacific in downtown San Francisco.
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