OPINION:
I have a plasma TV in my body?! And the easiest way to get it out is through a needle in my arm!?
Should I start my column this week like that? Well I have, and just like that I've become a gold club member.
Okay, let's back the
Judith Lacy's Jottings: There's gold in them there veins
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This is my left arm - I recognise the freckles - hooked up to the machine that separated my plasma from my red blood cells.
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I thought I'd be called up lickety-split for more and when I wasn't, I began to wonder if it was because I wrote about my experiences last time. So I took the needle by the horns and rang the New Zealand Blood Service. It turns out my blood type, AB+, is one of the rarest in the country and there's no point wasting blood, resources and time if it's not needed.
"Why not donate plasma instead?" the woman on the phone asked. The liquid part of your blood has a much longer shelf life.
I remembered seeing the people sitting opposite me last time, attached to a machine that looked like an old-fashioned tape recording device. They were plasma donors.
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"Sure", I said and the date was set.
As a first-time plasma donor, I had to have my veins checked to see if I had good blood flow. The right arm was ruled out, but the left was doable. Then I was asked a series of questions about my health by nurse Rosie. There are more questions for plasma donors, checking to see how I'm likely to react to the procedure.
No matter how old the RN, and Rosie was young enough to be my daughter, I turn into a self-obsessed girl during these types of exams. Perhaps it's the attention. Perhaps it's the chance to reflect on your health. Perhaps it's just me.
The haemoglobin test is the worse with its spring-loaded needle. It's like a mousetrap with no cheese (or chocolate) and I felt the tiny prick for two days. When I managed to stab myself with a knife while trying to chop pumpkin, the prick pain mysteriously went away.
The big decision was, did I want to squeeze a red droplet or a yellow star? I decided to go the whole hog and opted for the droplet. Your blood goes out - the draw - and that's when you squeeze the droplet. Pump de pump.
Then it's the return and my red blood cells go back into my arm while the plasma goes into a bag. It's gold coloured and called blood's liquid gold - the closest I will get to Goldilocks. We are aiming for 747g of plasma and make it, with three cycles; draw and return is one cycle.
Because I was a first-timer, Rosie stayed with me for the first cycle, but I felt fine and was more interested in what the donor next to me was going to get for his "surprise" snack. (Cheese and crackers.)
As a first-time plasma donor, I received a bag that packs into a triangle, a sticker for the car proclaiming there is a lifesaver on board, a chocolate (which I've just found - is it too early to eat chocolate at 9.02am on a Monday?), a gold-coloured droplet badge, a droplet-shaped air freshener (perhaps peppermint scented), and a bottle of hand sanitiser you can attach to a key ring or lanyard.
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Because it was my fifth donation, I also received a sturdy keep cup and a pen.
Plasma is more easily replaced in the body after a donation than red blood cells, so you can donate more often than whole-blood donors.
Plasma can be used to create up to 11 lifesaving blood products that help to treat burn victims, kidney patients, chemotherapy patients, people who have lost a lot of blood, and boost the immune system of people who cannot make antibodies.
The whole process took about 90 minutes, but will be shorter next time because I won't be a first-timer. That includes eating my cheese and crackers. And there was no blood-seeking mousetrap in sight.
