Blood for the blood god.

[24_hour_techie]

I feel ashamed.

I've got this friend who's lying in hospital. Do you know why she's lying in hospital? Because after several instances of surgery, her Haemoglobin score is at 8.2. This is, apparently, 'get thee to a transfuser' territory. if it goes below 8 then you're looking at them not taking no for an answer.

This friend of mine has refused a

Comments

[freddiefraggles]

You get used to needles. I've become a pin cushion in the last few years but that doesn't mean I like them. I get nervous still, and I find that vampires* are the worst, but sometimes you get a really good one who's finished before you realise they've started. Wait, no, anaesthetists are the worst, things in hands are more painful than in crooks of elbows.

* vampires as in the doctors who go around hospitals specifically collecting blood samples, it's early and I can't remember the actual name.

[sesquepadalia]

Haemotologists?

[freddiefraggles]

Phlebotomists.

[gwendysmile]

Good on you. Good on HER, jesus christ.

I can't donate here for the same reason - even though for all my surgeries blood packs were stockpiled ahead of time by myself and my family, who we know are perfectly healthy, I can't give blood in the UK. And I can't even donate when I go home to the states, because every time I do that, I've obviously been traveling abroad very recently. It's INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. People who have had transfusions are often the ones who know how important it is (and also have more experience dealing with needles no problem).

[sarahlascelles]

deleted my comment because when I re-read your post I realised I had misread and it made sense... I didnt realise having a tranfusion barred you from donating. And actually *slightly* worrying - is it that they cant test the blood for that?

[24_hour_techie]

http://www.transfusionguidelines.org.uk/docs/pdfs/dl_ps_vcjd_2008-09.pdf - Why having a transfusion bans you from ever donating again.

[areteus]

Its all about prions which are sort of not at all entirely unlike a virus and are in fact just randomly shaped proteins which, when you test for any and everything, merely show up as... proteins... trouble is these proteins tend to change other proteins into similar copies to themselves and if those proteins are part of some thing important like the nervous system you have issues... in theory it is possible to test for them but it is a long process involving antibodies to specific known prions...

Which does make things hard for the blood transfusion service who need to be able to a) get as much blood as they can without infecting anyone with anything and b) need to match blood with transfusee in as short a space of time as possible, which is rarely if ever enough time to run a SDS gel (1-2 hours) and a Western blot (1 hour) and then visualise it (2 hours)

[sarahlascelles]

And good luck.

[loopymushroom]

I've got bags of respect for anyone who's afraid of needles and gives blood anyway. Good on you, and good luck - this made my day better :)