That was fun.
Today, I went to give blood. Rather more than I intended, in fact. I'm better than most people with the concept of having a needle stuck in my arm that's sucking out my vital fluid, but this took the cake slightly. First, the volunteer who was overseeing the blood extraction calls over a proper nurse to have a look at something I can't see. Apparently things are "a bit slow". I fail to see the problem with this because they're going to get all the blood eventually, but the nurse prods and pokes my arm a bit with a worried expression on her face, and keeps telling me that I'm "doing brilliantly", despite the fact that all I'm doing is lying on a table occasionally squeezing my fist to help the blood flow. This goes on for some time.
Eventually the blood supply dries up completely and they start talking about a clot. I looking on with an expression that's kind of a mixture between fascination and horror, and images flash through my mind of my arm going the same way as House's leg. I'm not seriously worrying about it or anything, but all that's going through my head is the niggling thought that crippled arms are lame; if I'm going to have a crippled limb then, dammit, it's going to be the leg. I want a cane with flames on it to match my already irascible manner. I could totally be the House of physics.
I'm snapped out of this brief daydream when they announce that they're going to cut the session short and take out the needle. Now, I'm no doctor but even I can figure out what's going to happen when you build up a lot of pressure in somebody's arm and then unplug a hole in said arm, and sure enough blood spurts everywhere. They were commendably fast with the gauze but even so my arm got half covered in the stuff. It's just a shame there were no kids around to traumatize with the sight of it, but that's what you get for going along at the end of the day.
Anyway, as you can probably guess the clot was in fact inside the needle; apparently they'd put it in the wrong way up (or something) and this had slowed down the blood flow enough for a clot to form, so they only got away with 380ml of my rubbish blood* in the end. Really, I don't know why I bothered.
Also, a random thought: on the donor questionnaire they make you fill in at the start there's a bunch of questions all along the lines of "Have you had sex in the last 12 months with somebody who is HIV positive?" "Have you had sex in the last 12 months with somebody who has injected drugs?" "Have you had sex in the last 12 months with a prostitute? (not quite their wording but that's what they mean)" They could save some people a lot of time by just asking "Have you had sex in the last 12 months?" and then asking all that other crap if the answer was yes.
*It's AB+. I'm a universal receiver in that you can give me anybody's blood and I'll be perfectly fine, but my own blood can only be given to the 1% of the population that also has type AB+ blood. Nature nicely reinforcing my "Fuck you" attitude to the world there, I think.