no.77 - The Blood Demon

Any day that blood comes out of my body is a bad day. I do not like it. Whether it is a beagle tearing into my face with it's rotten gnashing teeth, or the needle end of a blood drive, I am unnerved.

My luck in these cases has been especially poor. Obviously anytime an accident results in spilled blood is unlucky, but more to the point, even those times when I have volunteered my blood have been terrible.

Some examples?

1.) At the age of eight, a blood test was ordered to determine if my behavioral issues were the result of hyperactivity or boredom. This test inexplicably require two bags of blood to be taken, one from each arm. Perhaps the concern was that only one side of my body was a "spaz case" as my classmates put it. Whatever the case, the elderly nurse left the room while my life's fluid drained away and she forgot to return, removing far more than she should have, leaving me faint, nauseous and about a quart low.

2.) In high school my biology teacher insisted we all prick our fingers and bleed into a tube to learn about blood type. When I explained that I could not (owing to a phobia stemming from the above experience) he asked if I was a fag or a girl, but relented upon seeing the unique shade of green I turned when he brought the needle close to do the job himself.

3.) Despite a lingering phobia about giving blood, at 18 I decided to donate blood as I understood it was a benefit to my fellow man. I explained my fear to the phlebotomist and all went well until she removed the needle and somehow the tube connected to the blood bag popped loose splattering her, me and the wall with my blood.

Me: "Can you still use that?"

Phlebotomist: "Yeah, sure." - as she hurries off to find the nearest A.I.D.S. test.

4.) In the late 90's I was given a routine blood test and results came back that I had no blood phosphorous. Low blood phosphorous can be a sign of cancer, but no phosphorous is impossible unless you are so malnourished as to be on the brink of death. While I do not eat enough vegetables, I have yet to avoid salad to such a degree as to cause myself imminent harm. The test was re-ordered and I endured another blood letting, which the lab promptly lost.

5.) My current doctors office, unable to locate my blood work or medical records, meant that I could not parent teach this morning as I was unable to provide proof of immunizations etc. required by law. This made my daughter cry as she had been extremely excited and proud that her daddy was going to be the parent teacher. But, here I am blogging to you with a new hole in my arm and a little less blood.



Even now, looking up synonyms for blood on thesaurus.com, rather than getting a list of alternatives, I recieve an error: Safari can’t open the page “http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/blood”. The error was: “bad server response” (NSURLErrorDomain:-1011) Please choose Report Bugs to Apple from the Safari menu, note the error number, and describe what you did before you saw this message.