It's been the required eight weeks since I last gave blood, so I made an appointment to do so. It's pretty convenient now; you can do it online, and there's a Big Red Bus scheduled to be nearby at frequent intervals.
I have been tempted to ask if they handle the blood better than other aspects of the donation process. Tempted, but I haven't given in, there being no point in unnecessarily angering the person who's about to plunge a needle into my arm. But I do wonder sometimes.
My appointment was for Friday, at our local Best Buy parking lot. When I received my appointment confirmation, I was confused, because the address they gave me was not the Best Buy address. Nevertheless, I was assured that the bus would be at Best Buy. And, indeed, there was a big red vehicle in sight as I approached, but it proved on closer inspection to be a Budweiser truck, which deals in a different sort of liquid altogether.
I decided to check out the actual address I had been given, but the bus wasn't there, either. "Weren't you informed?" asked the friendly person on the other end of the phone when I called the blood center. "The drive was changed to Sunday." No, I had not been informed, unless you count the e-mail I had received on Friday, reminding me of my appointment. It was simply a form notification, which I hardly looked at, as Google Calendar had been there, done that for me already. My mistake, I suppose, because although nothing was said about a date change, the e-mail did have Sunday as my appointment date.
No problem, though, just about 20 minutes of time wasted. I returned today, and there, where it was supposed to be, was the blood bus. It was busy but not crowded, and all went almost smoothly.
I say almost, because as I said last time, they wanted details for all of my trips overseas. It shouldn't have been a big deal, since I was prepared this time with the dates of my Swiss trips. (I'll admit to being a little fuzzy on the number and extent of side trips to Germany, France, and Italy, which are always a few hours here, a few hours there.) So I was surprised when there seemed to be some concern, and the lady came back to me after consulting the master book, asking, "What cities, what regions did you visit?" "All over the map," I replied, "but mostly in Basel and the Luzern area." Back to the book she went. Finally, she returned to me, with the page in question: "We're concerned about malaria," she said. "You see this region over near Mozambique...." The light dawned. "Switzerland," I sighed. "Switzerland. Not Swaziland."
After that, actually losing a pint of blood was a piece of cake.
