I'm half black, bitch!
I had a very eventful night for New Years and it started out with a bang. Woot. ... and then I ended my rotation in hemo and started in the blood bank the next week. Wow.
It started with... culture shock. Hemo is in the main lab so it's loud and crazy things are happening everywhere cause there's a ton of people around. It's not quiet. Now transfusion is in its own little room and it's really really quiet and scary. The supervisor is incredibly good at her job but intimidating. That was my initial reponse. It took me a while to adjust but I'm slowly getting used to the silence.
Last Thursday I almost killed a woman. It was incredibly not cool. First I literally took her blood away. They had stored it wrong so we had to go and comandeer it! Literally marched into to the scope room, by the way I saw the inside of her chest on the screen! .. and then was like WTF you can't store blood like that (my sup did) and took the blood bank.
So we go back to the blood bank and the lady screened positive for an unexpected reaction. It took me 4 hours to figure out that it was for something that wasn't clinically significant (it depends on the antibody) but it did delay her from getting blood. It was scary to know that someone's blood was waiting on me to do the procedure and interpret it correctly. I know that's what I'm supposed to be doing but somehow it hemo the mistakes seemed less scary.
So it's been sort of nerve wrecking in transfusion ever since because I don't ever want to be wrong and it's one of the rotations where we have very little background. Although I've been good and reading when I get home, I still feel underprepared. Which I think is a little overkill because with the amount of immuno that I retained, none of this stuff is altogether new or that complicated that I don't understand it. Which is great. =)
Today I got to type my blood. I never thought I would be so excited to get my blood drawn. I ran over to hemo and made a blood slide. I must say that my technique on making a blood slide is so much better than when I started. So my cells look itty bitty but they're fine, just my white cells are huge cause I just had a viral infection like last week.
At any rate. So I ran my blood type, apparently I am an O positive, which means that they're always be after my blood. My supervisor is already like hey, we're having a blood drive.... fuckin A. So my blood antigens suggests that I'm half black. Basically my haplotype either says that I'm Asian (1% of people have that type) or that I'm black (45% prevalence in black people) The two types itself have a 3% prevalence in Asian people, but the black one is more prevalent. So maybe I'm half black! haha!
So some pretty awesome news. I got an amazing evaluation from hemo, probably because Linda and Nelson did it and they liked Sophy and me. They were a little leinent but whatever, we were 2 weeks ahead of schedule for finsihing. We're good. =) And today my supervisor asked me a question that no student has been able to answer in like 20 years. I'm damned proud of myself. So to celebrate, I took a nap.
How sad.
It started with... culture shock. Hemo is in the main lab so it's loud and crazy things are happening everywhere cause there's a ton of people around. It's not quiet. Now transfusion is in its own little room and it's really really quiet and scary. The supervisor is incredibly good at her job but intimidating. That was my initial reponse. It took me a while to adjust but I'm slowly getting used to the silence.
Last Thursday I almost killed a woman. It was incredibly not cool. First I literally took her blood away. They had stored it wrong so we had to go and comandeer it! Literally marched into to the scope room, by the way I saw the inside of her chest on the screen! .. and then was like WTF you can't store blood like that (my sup did) and took the blood bank.
So we go back to the blood bank and the lady screened positive for an unexpected reaction. It took me 4 hours to figure out that it was for something that wasn't clinically significant (it depends on the antibody) but it did delay her from getting blood. It was scary to know that someone's blood was waiting on me to do the procedure and interpret it correctly. I know that's what I'm supposed to be doing but somehow it hemo the mistakes seemed less scary.
So it's been sort of nerve wrecking in transfusion ever since because I don't ever want to be wrong and it's one of the rotations where we have very little background. Although I've been good and reading when I get home, I still feel underprepared. Which I think is a little overkill because with the amount of immuno that I retained, none of this stuff is altogether new or that complicated that I don't understand it. Which is great. =)
Today I got to type my blood. I never thought I would be so excited to get my blood drawn. I ran over to hemo and made a blood slide. I must say that my technique on making a blood slide is so much better than when I started. So my cells look itty bitty but they're fine, just my white cells are huge cause I just had a viral infection like last week.
At any rate. So I ran my blood type, apparently I am an O positive, which means that they're always be after my blood. My supervisor is already like hey, we're having a blood drive.... fuckin A. So my blood antigens suggests that I'm half black. Basically my haplotype either says that I'm Asian (1% of people have that type) or that I'm black (45% prevalence in black people) The two types itself have a 3% prevalence in Asian people, but the black one is more prevalent. So maybe I'm half black! haha!
So some pretty awesome news. I got an amazing evaluation from hemo, probably because Linda and Nelson did it and they liked Sophy and me. They were a little leinent but whatever, we were 2 weeks ahead of schedule for finsihing. We're good. =) And today my supervisor asked me a question that no student has been able to answer in like 20 years. I'm damned proud of myself. So to celebrate, I took a nap.
How sad.