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Bloodwork

Every now and then, I need to have someone stab me in the elbow to draw blood. Usually, it's part of my yearly check ups and physical, but sometimes, I donate blood. Either way, someone with a medical degree gets to stab me. I've had to do it enough times where I'm used to it, but, somehow, it still leads to a few chuckles.

Take the last time that I donated blood. I made an appointment to get blood drawn, but I didn't realize that I was the last appointment for the day. Maybe it was because people wanted to be done for the day, or maybe they were trainees. Either way, I had a rather interesting experience. The technician/nurse/medically-trained person that did all of it had to ask a bunch of questions. It makes sense: you don't want to draw blood from someone with a high risk of disease or who might somehow taint the blood supply. That includes a bunch of questions about where I was born and my genetic lineage. That just blew the man away. He kept saying something to the effect of, "whoa! Really?" and he even commented that it must "blow people's minds."

From that moment on, I realized that this wasn't going to be your usual blood draw process. He also kept a boom box-looking radio handy, and we were regaled with 80s pop music while we were completing all of the pre-work. At one point, he even started singing along to Young MC's "Bust a Move." Well, heck, I know the words to that one, too. I don't think I've ever rapped along to anything when donating blood before.

When it came down to the actual blood draw, everything went fairly normally. However, the medical professionals have to check on you to make sure you're not feeling faint or otherwise in danger. That led to this exchange:

Medical Professional: "Hey, are you okay?"
Me: "Yeah, I'm doing all right."
Medical Professional: "Okay, just checking. You do have a needle in your arm, after all."

Yup, that's how it all went down. The whole thing cracked me up. I'm going to have to donate blood more often.
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