Reality Pause

Heading home from work yesterday was more eventful than I am accustomed. Riding a motorcycle to work naturally means that I drive slower and much more defensively. I do not want to be a grease stain and a bunch of annual flowers.

The first part of my ride home is through a residential area. The speed limit is 25mph for about 2 miles. There have been many police sightings along the way so I am doing exactly 25mph. At one point the road narrows significantly at a 3 way stop. A clunker of a junk heap pulls out behind me. He is swerving back and forth and is carrying a snow tube thing out his window. Swerving back and forth he gets right up behind me and then goes to pass me.

Right next to me, this guy is swerving back and forth, driving with one hand, and not paying attention to driving. There is no way I am going to let this guy hit me, so I sped up, fast. Then I stop at the stop sign. This moron barely misses me as he pulls up along side me on the right hand side and starts cussing at me. I inform him of his idiotic way of driving and his reply was simply, “What are you going to do about it.”

Anger and fear flooded over me. What would I do if he were to get out of his car and come over to me. Probably drive off. So I did. But behind me I heard the squeal of spinning tires. In my rearview mirror, I watch him peel out into the neighborhood. What a winner.

Remind me, we are not moving to that neighborhood!

It started out innocently. A health fair sponsored by work. Police dog demonstrations, gym, insurance, and corporate sponsor representatives, and the villain in our story, the blood mobile, collecting blood for the Red Cross.

I had never donated blood. For one reason or another, it just never happened. I do not know why I went  to donate. Why was this day any different than any other day? I do not know, but in I went. They had me answer a bunch of questions. Easiest survey I ever took. Tested my blood for iron content (50 whatever that means) and then laid me down on a bed. This is where the problems began. I was wearing a shirt that said, “I’m not dead yet.” Either this shirt saved me (my vote), or was the cause of my problems.

I had them stab my left arm, since I am right handed and did not want to lose the ability to use my right arm. They prepped my arm, and stabbed me. Did not hurt at all. BUT! The lady accidentally pulled the needle out of my arm. Yeah, I fountained blood everywhere! Got on my clothes, the bed, all over her white coat, made a mess! She started screaming for someone to come help, after she stopped my blood flow. They cleaned me up and moved me to a different bed and stabbed my right arm. One arm one stab. They then sucked the blood out of my right arm while they sanitized the first bed. Six minutes 30 seconds is how long it took me to fill up the blood bag. During those six minutes, we all joked about how this was my first time, how much of a mess it made, and the fact that I did not have to clean it up.

So now I am done, I am really thirsty so I go to get a drink of juice. Walked right over, opened the cooler, took out a can, popped it open and drank about half of it. Sat down and… The world began closing in around me.  I knew I was fainting. My memory says that I announced I was fainting and for someone to take my juice. And then everyone was yelling at me to get me to lie down and put my legs up. In actuality I dropped my juice which got their attention. I was a nice shade of green which got them running. I did tell them I was fainting and going to drop my juice, told them about five times, after I had dropped my juice of course. I may have said something before hand, but there is no proof of that. They really were yelling at me. I could not hear anything. They kept telling me not to worry about the juice they got it. I need to lie down and put my legs up. I finally caught on to that part.

They put an ice pack behind my neck, and one on my chest. They made me stay like that for about 10 minutes before they let me sit up. After they took my blood, I was there for another 45 minutes in total. They kept making me drink juice and eat cookies. When I finally went back into work, they almost insisted that they escort me in. I felt a bit less than normal the rest of the day. But what a journal entry that adventure became!