VISIT YOUR LOCAL BLOODBANK

Yesterday evening I came home to discover Savage Kitten flaked out exhausted in bed.
She was pale and wan, and too tired to even eat (and being Cantonese-American she pretty much LIVES to feed - seeing her fiercely hunt down helpless comestibles is a sight to behold).
No, not a cold, nor flue. Not even the monthly .... errm, you know. Instead, something far better. She gave blood yesterday.
[Please note: the 'monthly .... errm you know' is pictured as a large porcupine wearing granny-glasses and native-bead necklaces who does a fearsome rhumba. I just thought you should know this. She visits us every .... errm, month. Yes.]


Giving blood is a fine thing, entirely a commendable practice. It is one of the best things you can do, and you should make it a practice to do it regularly.

Just never gonna do it myself. I'll leave it up to you.
I got a needle-phobia going on.

The last time a medical person drew blood out of my arm, I took one look at the hypodermic slowly filling with warm pulsating blood and went into shock.

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Now, where was I? Oh yes, warm crimson fluid filling up a glass tube ......

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Please understand that it isn't the blood. I have no problem with blood. Seeing the back of the driver's head explode from a sniper bullet in Mindanao was not a problem, and attending a boucherie is always fun - especially if they cook the odd parts. Horrid accidents absolutely fascinate me.
I would not object at all if they allowed me to donate blood by gashing myself fiercely. But needles, are, well, an issue.

One of my earliest memories is being chased around a doctor's office by an ogre in a white lab coat intent on giving me a wholly unnecessary flue-shot. This memory got relived and refreshed every year for fifteen years until I finally had the stones to rebel against egregious needling.
[And then promptly spent three weeks having the worst flue ever - that entire holiday season is a solid blur of buckets, shaking fevers, and hallucinations.]

In my youth it seemed like the solution for every conceivable medical issue involved a sadist, reeking of antiseptic, in a white lab coat, holding an instrument of punctuation. That drop of fluid expressed from the tip in preparation of the inevitable jab is enough to .......

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There is a small bright side to the needle-phobia, though. I am entirely unlikely to ever become addicted to injectable substances. Even the mere idea of swabbing an area near a vein, boiling a solution in a spoon, tying off the arm, and sticking a shiny sterilized needle ........

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Yes, the thought of doing something like that is entirely unappealing. And heck will freeze over before I even come close to it. Needles disconcert me that much. Because of that phobia, heroin will never be part of the programme.
But this is not as comforting as you would think.
You see, it wouldn't be possible EVEN IF I didn't have the nee ... nee ... nee ...

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Why is the n-phobia not the main reason for avoiding poppy derivatives?

Because opiates send me into shock. The last time I had a root canal (2002), the dentist prescribed painkillers for when the novocaine wore off. So I took one (just one!) before leaving the house that evening. And then spent over an hour sitting on the cold pavement with sweat pouring from every pore, ready to pass out.

There were thirty pills in that bottle when I got it - there are twenty nine of them left. The expiry date was five years ago.

I now carry a card in my wallet that instructs emergency personal to under no circumstances give me any codeine, penicillin-type anti-biotics, or raw bananas.


Anyhow, it is both good and noble to donate blood. I thoroughly encourage your doing so.