4/101 #92 - Donate blood 4 times

Donating blood is an important thing. Did you know that fewer than 5% of folks living in the U.S. donate blood each year? Part of the reason - only 38% of the population is eligible to donate blood. I'm eligible. I should do it more.

So I gave blood yesterday. My first of four planned donations during these 1001 days. I really have no reason for the fact that I am pretty sure this is the first time I have given blood since I joined the hospital system that employs me. I've been here 4.5 years. That's pathetic. The only excuse I have is for almost two of those years I was either pregnant or nursing my baby. But what about the other 2.5? I have no excuse.

Alas - since I put this on my goal list, I had eaten breakfast yesterday, and the hospital made it so easy they were collecting blood in my building (which is not connected to the hospital), I decided yesterday was a perfect day.

I was reminded about the humilation factor that can come when you are evaluated for "eligibility." If you've never given blood, you might be interested to know that they ask if you are a man that has had sex with a man. Then they ask if you are a woman who has had sex with a man who has sex with a man. They ask you about your recent STD experiences including gonorrhea and I think syphillis.

You also have to have a blood content above a certain amount, iron levels at a certain amount, etc.

It was also interesting that I have wonderful blood pressure (112/77 and a heart rate of 59) but then the guy sort of indicated my job must be easy because my BP wasn't high. (Are you saying that because I'm pleasantly plump I can't possibly be healthy on the inside? You're lucky I was calm and relaxed or you might have been slapped, dude!).

Anyway, it's a pretty invasive process. But if I were ever to have a blood transfusion, I guess I'd be thankful they did a thorough check!

When I went to lay down on the table, I of course got the nurse who could not find my vein to save her life. She had to call someone over, and both of them dug around in my arm trying to find my vein while I winced and almost peed my pants. They did offer to stop but I told them to just find it already! (Sort of reminds me of my birthing experience when I told the doctor to quit washing his hands, use Purell, and get that baby out of me!) Eventually they poked just right and the blood started flowing.

Once they got the vein started it wasn't a big deal. A little uncomfortable, but not painful. And I had my handy blackberry so I surfed facebook and returned emails with my mad one-handed texting skillz until it was over.

Then I got a T-shirt I would likely never wear except I need a longsleeve one to go walking. And I got a keychain that has a countdown until the next time I am eligible to give blood.

Now that is a good prize. Guilt works wonders with me - just ask my mom! (Shout out to ya Mom! Just seeing if you're reading!). My friend Mila told me once that she was sure I was Catholic with all the guilt I carry around. A few months later she said to scratch Catholic - I must be Jewish. I'm not either so I'm just going on her observations, but it's the effective motivator for me for sure.

When I see the countdown zeroed out I should feel pretty guilty. This is my first time donating when I could have given at least 20 times or more by now. So 55 days from now or soon thereafter you should see a 4.2/101 post with my next experience. Or else I've lost the keychain, I imagine.

Hopefully the next donation will be pretty uneventful as well. I'll pay close attention though so I have something interesting to write about.

3/101 #29 - First of 5 Books from Oprah’s Book Club – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This novel was nothing like what I expected from the title. I’m rather glad that I picked this book because of a very brief synopsis and the fact that it was on Oprah’s list and available at Half Priced Books, but didn’t read any editorial reviews – it exceeded by expectations by far.

I thought I was going to sit down and read a fictional account of a hermaphrodite and the trials and romance challenges the person encountered in his/her life. Intrigued by GLBT issues, that storyline would have been entertaining enough for me. However, this book was nothing like I expected and was everything more.

The story is told from the first-person narrative of Calliope (Cal) Stephanides, a 2nd generation Greek-American. And true to the Greek culture, Cal’s development and sense of self do not start at her birth, but are intertwined with generations of history of her family.

Oh, I apologize in advance but during this review you are going to witness me using him/her, she/he interchangeably because for the majority of the story, Cal is Calliope, and that is how I grew to identify with her. But by the end I understand how Calliope is really Cal all along, and it gave me a real sense of what a hermaphrodite or anyone who suffers from gender identify disorder must go through.

I also really like plays on words. Middlesex is the street that Calliope lived on when she hit puberty. It is a real street in Flint, Michigan. It’s so important because it is where Calliope discovered how she was different, who she was meant to love, and that life for her would always be a bit confusing. But I of course loved that Eugenides chose this unique location because Calliope/Cal and likely all hermaphrodites and sufferers of gender identity disorder spend most of their lives being somewhere in between male and female - somewhere in the middle - Middlesex.

This book drew me in and, at the expense of my home’s tidiness (I put off chores for the sake of keeping my nose pressed in the book), consumed my thoughts. Cal explains that how he came to be began all the way back when his grandparents were Greeks living in Turkey during the time the Greeks were driven out. I don’t want to completely ruin the story, so I will only say that we go on to see how people fall in love in spite of strange forbidden circumstances, and how there are so many opportunities for chance to change the entire course of history and the likelihood that Calliope would be born the way she was, which is because of a genetic mutation that requires a certain combination of genes to be realized.

A reader of mostly non-fiction, I had to remind myself repeatedly that this wasn’t a true story. That Cal wasn’t real and the story of Desdemonia and Lefty, of Tessie and Milton, and all the other characters were not true accounts.

Eugenides writes so descriptively and so well that I was drawn in as if I were witnessing the Detroit riots myself, which, as a student of diversity in America, was a whole other fascinating subplot in the story for me.

By taking the reader through the lives of 3 generations of Stephanides, Eugenides makes you care for Calliope. He makes you feel the confusion Calliope feels about her anatomy, and how isolated and alone she felt about asking someone about it – but knowing it was somehow different. He helps you feel the anguish of a teenager in love with someone society would say was unacceptable and given it all takes place during the civil rights movement drew so many parallels in my mind as I read it. Eugenides makes you feel her pain and isolation even as an adult, accepting of who she is (or actually he, by the time adulthood has come about) but never being sure if the person who holds his heart will return the affection once she finds out how he is “different.”

For anyone who might have felt they didn’t fit in, this book will certainly be a meaningful and eventually comforting read.