The stupid drone is taking away my egoboo!

[celticdragonfly]

Oooh, I'm a bit cranky.

I've given blood for years. I was a good regular donor in college, just about every 8 weeks. And I used to give reasonably regularly in California. Hey, I'm O-neg CMV-neg, they need me. It was important to me. I can't give much to charity in my life, but I can "give til it hurts" as a blood donor. And it makes me feel good.

I hadn't done it for quite a while. A couple of pregnancies and time spent as a busy nursing mother will do that. I had, however, been a milk donor - informally when Brendan was a baby, with the San Jose milkbank after Maggie, and with the Texas milkbank post Jamie.

So they do blood drives at our church occasionally. And Sunday Van was asking me after service, was I a donor? Hey, I thought, I'm not pregnant, not nursing anymore, not prepping for a surgery, hey, I could give blood again! So I arranged to pick Karl up from work and have him come along to chase the kids while I gave blood.

So there I am filling out their forms. They put me down for "Have you ever given blood under another name" as No, even though I'd told them yes, I had - apparently they only care if you've done it for Carter Blood Services. Which is dumb, given the wording of the question. Mistyped my address, too. Then there was the whole big list of questions on the back, and I'm filling them out, and figuring okay, here's the weird technicalities I'll have to explain, no big deal.

Then I actually see the guy to go through the list. And hit a problem. See, it asks if you were ever in Europe and such (and various other questions, yeah, yeah) and then it asks if you've spent time equal to or adding up to 3 months in (list of countries including the UK).

Well, back in oh, 1984? rlseiver had a business trip to the UK, and bkseiver and the rest of us were giving him that "Don't even THINK you're going without us" look. So it turned into a family vacation. I don't remember precisely how long it was. I was 15, fer crying out loud. A few weeks? Then in college, summer of 1989? 1990? I had a summer course of overseas study, a forensic anthropology trip to London and Cambridge. A few weeks? couple of months? I'm not sure, that was a long time ago. So yeah, between the two of them it might just have added up to 3 months.

So I'm not even worrying about it, because I've put own details of my travel all the times I've given for the Red Cross, and explained it to them. It's never been a problem, I wasn't there during any of the Mad Cow disease hoohah or anything, no problem.

Well. Apparently it was a problem. The drone I got to go over the questions - and he really seemed just a drone, I clearly seemed to know a lot more about medical questions than he did - found this a big deal, and wanted to pin me down on the exact times. Heck if I know, that was a loooong time ago. It might add up to just 3 months. Apparently this was a dealbreaker. I'm pissed. I've been a multi-gallon donor since this travel happened!

And oh gah grrrrrr, stupid drone, if this is a dealbreaker, than flipping say so and do NOT make me go through the rest of your form with you! Because why the heck bother? The answer is no, so let me go. He kept going on about forms and records. Doesn't matter, if you say I can't donate, I'm going AWAY now, and clearly there will be no point in me coming back, so who cares. Oh, but that number about the travel might CHANGE someday! Well, if it does, since I won't be coming back, how the hell would I ever know? Again, no point. Pissed me off.

You know, if I'd been told no for something recent, it'd be okay. No, you had surgery in the last 12 months, come back next year. Or even, oh, you had home-injected medications during fertility treatment? No, you can't donate. (Okay, that'd be annoying, but I wouldn't be this mad) But to have them tell me no on something that the Red Cross had said yes and taken multiple gallons from me after, oh that makes me MAD.

Heck, I've qualified as a milk donor for premie babies in two different states.

And they wonder why blood donations are in such low supply.

Comments

[sandy-tyras.livejournal.com]

AIDS, mostly.

I used to give regularly in California and if I remember correctly the Red Cross (at least there and then) asked if you had spent 3 consequtive months abroad. I've never been out of this country except for a day trip to Toronto about 20 years ago, so it was no problem for me either way.

It is aggravating, isn't it? They want to protect the blood supply, but if they aren't careful they will protect it until there just isn't enough.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Hmph. Idiots. I've been tested for all kinds of things many times since then, and been tested for AIDS lots of times. This is, ironically, the same outfit that did the testing for the Austin milkbank before I was allowed to donate milk. 14 or 15 years after the last trip to the UK. (And since when is the UK a hotbed of AIDS?)

[estokien.livejournal.com]

For Africa and the like it is AIDS, for Europe it is apparently Mad Cow Disease. It was originally just England, then when they saw it popup in France, suddenly being in France was anaethema and they may have widened it out to Europe. They apparently have very little idea what the onset time of the human form is, so they just mark out everyone.

The sad thing is, I think they still have the Haiti prohibition on there, which tells me that they aren't in the business of taking restrictions off.

I'm speaking of the Red Cross here, which is where I always gave blood.