Visions of ice-cream bars

I have been hunkered down since March, taking only essential trips while fully masked such as to BLM Plaza in the District in early June to confront those silent, foreboding, anonymous soldiers in full combat gear in a line keeping the people away from the people's house.  Yesterday I traveled to INOVA Blood Donation Center in Annandale to donate whole blood.

A disconcerting sign greeted me upon arrival, telling me to leave immediately if, within the last 14 days: "You have traveled to an area with an outbreak of COVID-19. Currently the CDC has identified outbreaks in the following areas-All areas of all countries worldwide [including] cruise ships or riverboat travel anywhere in the world." I looked real hard at it to see if it was a Trump Tweet, it was so ridiculous. Yes, I ignored the warning sign and donated blood because I think I am not currently sick and perhaps sick or injured people currently could use a little O+ blood infusion (very sought after).

I had wanted to get into some kind of plasma therapy program because I think I might have had the coronavirus in February because I was as sick as I have ever been for two weeks with a cough-your-lungs-out respiratory illness but there is no antibody test I can get ("You only had the flu" said the doctor I talked to over the phone last month, who would have had to write me a prescription to get an antibody test but, she assured me, Kaiser doesn't do antibody test anyway) so I just donated whole blood.  Oh well, dumping a bag of whole blood in twenty minutes is a whole lot better for me anyway than spending 90-120 minutes hooked up to a a centrifuge machine that takes fluid out, whirls plasma out and returns the blood because it takes 6-8 units of blood (your body's entire volume) to get a unit of plasma.

After the donation, I went to the post-blooding refreshment center where I noted with pleasure that the center had added frozen ice cream bars to the water, juices and cookies that have always been provided.  I opened the freezer and identified the ice-cream bar I was going to enjoy but I left it in the freezer while I finished the orange juice I was drinking.  Meanwhile another old man like me shuffled in and stood socially distant from me between me and the freezer while he temporarily removed his mask (as I had) to drink his bottle of water.  Suddenly he erupted in a big, juicy cough into the crook of his elbow but without a mask on and I stared in horror at the freezer on the far side of him.  In it was the ice cream bar I had already identified as being to die for and which I really wanted since I haven't had ice cream in over 100 days.  I could, however, figuratively see an 8-foot square area of expelled droplets swarming around this man, directly between me and that freezer in this restricted indoor space.  Practically crying out in despair, I immediately executed a 180 degree turnaround and walked very fast out of the center.

Is February half over already?

It's midway through February already, closer to spring than to fall, practically halfway to income tax day.  I've been trying to stay busy, continuing my routine of running three times a week, albeit at reduced milage due to the limiting factors of a balky achilles and an aching arthritic hip. The mostly 50 degree-plus weather has been an inducement to get out there and enjoy the day on a pleasant jog which is more like a shuffle than a run these days but still, ten months ago I wasn't running at all.

I believed my eye woes were finally behind me with the coming of the new year, but this month I thought that my good eye might be starting to suffer the same malady as my bad, right eye.  I imagined I was seeing what I call "fly-bys," a feeling or glimpse that something small, like a fly, was whizzing past the periphery of my vision, and feared that the floating junk in my left eye was increasing.  These are the ominous warning signs that your retina may be deteriorating and it can lead to a hole in your vision which is a real and immediate medical emergency.  Also I just felt that my vision was subtly degrading because it seemed harder to see my footfalls during runs in low or flat light conditions.  So I called for an appointment with an ophthalmologist and within a few days had both of my eyes checked out.  The verdict?  My good eye, the left one, was fine although I was at a "greater risk" than the normal population for its retina to deteriorate because it had already happened to my other eye.  But in my bad eye, the subject of all those operations a year ago, I had developed scar tissue that was attached to the plastic lens inserted during my cataract surgery last April, that was obscuring my vision in that eye, a "one in five" occurrence I was told, which seems like a high rate of failure or at least significant side effects for such a commonly performed operation to me.  After four eye surgeries in the recent past, two of them emergency operations that led in each instance to an onerous week of "face-down" recovery, no movement of the head permitted, I am scheduled for an "office procedure" later this month involving lasering the scar tissue inside my eye to blast it away, from which I supposedly will drive myself home following it.  Supposedly it is a safe procedure which will improve the vision in that already-damaged eye, which carries only a "theoretical risk" of burning a hole in the retina if the laser beam is errant as a possible side effect (I asked).  I'm glad I went to the doc but I'm not happy about this development.

I've also been attending different churches this month as I like to sample a few different religious services each year.  I attended a service at the Washington National Cathedral, a renowned ornate Episcopal church in the District that suffered extensive damage to its spires and gargoyle statues during the big earthquake that shook DC last decade.  I attended the service, involving much singing and several baptismal, with a congregation member who showed me around the beautiful interior afterwards.  I attended a service at the Falls Church Anglican, a mega church whose congregation years ago took over my church, the Falls Church Episcopal.  That congregation, under the leadership of its charismatic priest who in my opinion was homophobic and misogynistic, opposed to gay bishops and women priests, purged the rolls of parishioners who were liberal and followed a Nigerian bishop with those biases instead of the Virginia diocese.  In effect they squatted on the church property for years while a lawsuit to reclaim the property by its rightful owners finally prevailed about seven years later and the illegal usurpers had to leave the property and build its own church.  I usually attend one service there a year to see what they're preaching these days, and their new church was finally completed this year.  The service was the last one I will attend there as their metamorphosis seems to be complete and the congregants seemed a little too in rapture for me.  There was a soft rock religious band that played hymns and psalms throughout the service, projecting their image and the lyrics on two huge TV screens and the congregation swayed to the music throughout and sang along, many raising and waving their hands to the heavens in supplication as they asked Jesus to save them and be their friend.  There was no communion, although the sweet-talking priest did talk about Anna Karenina during his sermon, which I found interesting.

Other than that, I donated double red blood cells last week, which wiped out my running vitality for the next run, my century and a quarter blood donation.  This month I have watched the rapid, perhaps fatal, decline of our great republic as the president spins out of control, enabled by a slender majority of Republican Senators representing about 20% of the US population.  Today I spent a wonderful Valentine's Day with a special friend, visiting a distillery, enjoying a bowl of mussels and seeing the Academy Award winning movie Parasite with her.  President's Day is this weekend and two of my sons have birthdays this month and maybe I'll see either or both of them at the local gourmet pizzeria during one or more of those lunch hours.  And this month also has one more day than usual, it being a leap year.

For today I'm gay

49 tragic deaths in a gay nightclub in Orlando Sunday.  A mentally unstable, wife-abusing US citizen who was on the FBI's radar screen was able to easily buy an assault rifle and put it to horrific use.  Only in America.

He was a homegrown terrorist who was either a homophobe or perhaps a self-loathing denier.  This situation has nothing to do with religion.

I donated double red cells on Friday, and I like to think that if my donation wasn't put to good use in my area, then perhaps it was sent to Orlando for use after that mass carnage.  I am O+ so my blood is useful for almost everyone (except for the rarer O- people).

For today, I am gay in solidarity with my slain and wounded brethren and sisters.

The Blood Draw Deferred.

You might know that runners are obsessive. Perhaps you know that I donated 100 whole units of blood over thirty years and then, once I hit the century mark, I started in on donating blood products. Lately, every time I become available to donate, I drive out to the INOVA donation center and give.

Two weeks ago my next blood donation was due, but my running buddy Leah, who was trying to break four hours in the marathon, had asked me to run the last 7 miles of the Marine Corps Marathon with her the very next week. I wanted to donate blood on schedule, and I thought I could maintain the 9:09 pace necessary to break four hours, but I didn't want to let her down by hitting the wall because of depleted red blood cells. For a week after a donation I can often feel fatigue or a lack of energy during the difficult part of a run, whether doing a fast pace, during the fifth mile or on a long hill.

Leah's marathon PR was 4:51 so nobody thought she could throw down a 3:59, except for her. As for myself, I thought it was possible but unlikely, although I thought for sure she could achieve a huge PR. Last year she ran a 1:50 half-marathon with less-than-optimal training, lowering her PR at that distance by over 25 minutes.

I would do anything for Leah because she is my friend and one of the wisest people I know, and I seek out her counsel when I have an intractable problem. She has been making tremendous strides the last two years as a runner and has surpassed wherever I am, although we still run together. Soon I'll tell you how she did, with minimal training, but suffice to say that I'm glad I didn't donate as soon I could have, or falter in the steady, unchanging pace when I jumped in to accompany her for the last seven miles.

The Century Mark

Last month I reached my lifetime goal of donating 100 units of blood during my lifetime, ironically enough on the tenth annual World Blood Donation Day (who knew?).  This is me happy that I'm submitting my tracked and scarred arms for a needle draw for the last time.

That's twelve and a half gallons of the red stuff.  I thought I could donate 101 times and then be able to say I donated over 100 times, or 104 times and say I donated 13 gallons, but 100 is a nice enough goal so I'm done.

I've been fortunate to be healthy enough to donate, so I should have made my blood available if it helped the greater good.  I'm a Democrat through and through and still look to the collective good and not the inner selfishness (needle pricks sting or even sometimes hurt so why do it for no personal gain?).

My blood is good blood, O+, able to be used for anyone except O- persons, their blood is the universal donar blood.  A friend of mine has the best blood joke, her blood is A+ and she likes to say, "I like to donate blood because when they test me, I always get an A+."

What did you do in the war?

The man next to me on the gurney was old.  But then so am I.

Old enough to be invisible.  I have become reconciled to it.

We were both invisible.  The phlebotomist got both of our blood drips going and then left us to go talk to the nurse across the room.

"Hey, how are you doing over there," I called out.  The man's head snapped around and he said, "Fine.  Happy birthday.  I heard the nurses say it was your birthday when you came in."

"Yeah," I said, "what better way to celebrate your birthday than to donate your 99th unit of blood?"  I was feeling frisky about my penultimate blood donation before I reached my lifetime goal of a century mark of blood donations and was bragging.

"This is my 188th donation," came the reply.  My head snapped around and I looked at him and asked, "How old are you, sir?"

"Eighty-nine."  I immediately launched into my ever-present quest to speak with every member of the greatest generation that I possibly can and asked, "So did you serve in World War II?'

"Yes," came the answer, "I was in the Navy in the Pacific." 

"My dad was in the 1st Marine Division at Peleliu and Okinawa," I responded.

I looked across the room as we both bled out at the blood technician rapt in conversation with the nurse as us two old fogeys entertained ourselves.  " I was off Okinawa," the man beside me said, "Those Kamikazes were terrible." 

"My dad never faced a kamikaze, he merely flushed out dogged Japanese infantrymen from deep inside caves on the ridges."  The old-timer wasn't biting on my talk about my dad.

"My ship was the Constellation, but then they changed its name to the USS Hope.  We went to pick up the Bataan Death March survivors after the Japanese surrendered."

This was interesting.  "They must have been in rough shape after being POWs for over three years."

"Yes they were.  They were mere toothpicks when they came on board.  They ate everything we put in front of them.  We were making ice cream for them and they didn't even wait for it to freeze, they drank it in liquid form.  Within the hour they were pregnant toothpicks."

I could imagine emaciated hollow-eyed men, mere skin and bones, forming grotesquely distended stomachs from rich feasting after years of starvation as their bellies blew up.  "A doctor came down to the mess and put a stop to us feeding them.  He said we would kill them if we fed them too much too fast, it would overwhelm their systems."

The octogenarian's name was Tony, he was a hero in World War II and he's still a hero.  How many lives do you think he's saved with 188 blood donations?  He was a spry fellow, he could get around just fine, and there was nothing wrong with his mind or his memory.  I have learned that all you have to do is begin a conversation with someone considerably older than yourself and sometimes it can become a rich learning experience.

Uncle Sam's Day

It was Cherry Blossom time in the District last week.  The blooms, as usual, were spectacular.

I'm taking off tomorrow, tax day, to celebrate.  After I donate blood for the 99th time in the morning, I'm going to have lunch at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover at noon.  Anyone who cares to is free to join me.

95%

I donated my 95th unit of whole blood today; I gave my first pint in 1982.  They like my blood because it's O+, which is secondary only to O-, which can be transfused into anyone.

In eight weeks I can donate my 96th unit, which will be my 12th gallon of blood.  Imagine 12 large chlorax containers filled with bright red fluid. 

The date is circled on my calendar, as I'm trying to get to one hundred, a little goal I set for myself.  I'm on track this year to donate six times, like I did last year and one other year. 

The absolute maximum amount you can donate in a year is seven times, but only if you donate right after the new year and right before the end of the year.  You literally have to carefully plan it out, and I've only done it once before.

It's midday, 86 degrees, so let's go for a run!

Today was predicted, correctly, to be 86 degrees and humid, but the next four days are predicted to be in the mid-90s.  So I went out from work at noon with my two running buddies (both women half my age) for my 3d of four runs this week.  They went 5.1 miles in about 46 minutes; I went 5 miles even in 45:23 (9:05); you see I caved in to the hill (Capitol Hill, The Hill) at the end and walked up the last half of it, and L and R did not.

I blamed it on my blood donation on Friday.  Whatever.

But it's five miles in the books.  We're all getting acclimated to the coming heat and humidity of the summer (which I think starts tomorrow) and as I huffed and puffed with my hands on my knees and the sweat dripping off my cap's bill waiting at street crossings, I noticed L asking if everything was okay with me and R watching closely.

I used to be faster than L (I never ran with R before), substantially faster, but now she's faster and I'm slower.  I noticed in the last half mile that L was leading and R was trailing me, watching, but that's what running buddies do.

The Eight-Miler

Last Saturday I met John at 7:30 a.m. at Bluemont on the W&OD Trail to run 8 miles before I drove down to NC to visit a friend who was impacted by the visit of Hurricane Irene a week earlier. Eight miles was the longest either John or I had run in two years.

John was bothered by a hip injury he's been dealing with so we ran slowly, enjoying the time we were out there. We set out westbound on the trail so that we could do the last half downhill after we turned around.

The local high school was conducting its first cross country training run so a steady progression of skinny young runners ran by opposing us and then shortly, they all overtook us and passed us from behind. We passed a few of them back because we'd catch up with them at street crossings where they were patiently waiting for the green light and we'd run the red and get ahead for a short while.

We turned around at the 42 minute mark and ran a negative split of 40 minutes coming back. Afterwards I stopped in at the INOVA Health Center in Merrifield to give my 89th blood donation lifetime before tackling the seven hour drive to NC.

No Bloody Good

I tried to give blood this morning. I'm on a quest to give 100 units in my lifetime, and I'm currently at 80. But my odyssey has slowed down recently because I get turned away sometimes now, deferred, as they politely say.

Not because I've done anything fun with my life like live in Europe or visit Africa or have wild sex or get body piercings. No, it's just because of my mundane elevated blood pressure.

Today my temperature was good, the blood droplet from my finger sank in the solution indicating I have good iron, but my upper BP reading was 190. Too high. They told me to relax (yeah, right), waited ten minutes and sure enough the upper reading was down. But now the lower reading was too high, having risen to above 110. They told me I could have another reading in 10 minutes but by rule, I had to leave the office first and come back. I just left.

I'm on medication for hypertension, which I attribute wholly to my exposure to Western divorce litigation, but I must have lost a bottle of pills because earlier this month, I was suddenly down to one or two pills. I went to Kaiser for a refill but I was turned away (deferred?) because I was too early--meaning I couldn't refill my 90-day supply because the pills I had already received should have lasted through January. The earliest I could receive a refill was on January 18th. I told the Kaiser pharmacist I'd lost those pills, apparently. She shrugged, offered me two pills (which would come out of the next order), and told me to come back on the 18th or else make an appointment with my doctor. It was the rule.

I asked her if she thought I was selling blood pressure pills on the black market. She just stared at me. Next time I guess I'll claim they were stolen, but they'll probably require a police report before issuing a refill. Of blood pressure pills. There's a lot of demand for those babies, you know.

All these "rules" are leaving me feeling so helpless and disgusted that I treated myself to a meal at McDonalds. I had two double cheeseburgers off of their dollar menu. That ought to help my b/p.

Roswell

I have a family member who contracted Hep-C from a blood transfusion she underwent when her oldest child was born, because she lost so much blood during delivery. In those days blood largely came from paid donors, including many drug addicts who sold their blood for ready cash so they could shoot up some more. For two decades afterwards she went undiagnosed although she told doctors that something was wrong with her. They merely labeled her a hypochondriac. Finally when she was in her 50s her condition was diagnosed correctly, her husband divorced her, she underwent a year of grueling chemotherapy and now, since she was a live-at-home Mom, she doesn't benefit from America's work-driven health insurance programs.

So now she has a pre-existing condition, which isn't her fault, and although she has dedicated her life since her divorce to getting a job with health insurance benefits, no employer who offers health insurance will hire her because she is approaching the age of 60. (This is the richest nation ever on earth.)

Her only practical option is to become a pauper so that when her house is gone and all her possessions are in her siblings' garages, the government can take her in and administer minimal health care to her that she can't otherwise afford til she dies.

Who in the world doesn't want the Public Option?

Back on track

I'm back on track. Not with my running, which has been non-existent since Saturday when I ran 13 miles with my training group and hurt my toe, but with my blood donating.

Last month the blood center rejected me because my blood pressure was too high, 182/106. Hitting the the century mark on the lower number is always a fatal reading.

Fatal to attempts to donate blood, that is. Apparently they're afraid that the drop in b/p caused by decreasing your volume of blood by taking a pint of it could be too precipitous if your b/p is too high to start with, and you could pass out.

Or worse, I guess.

I'm on b/p medicine (welcome to your 50s) but my dosage obviously needed some fine-tuning. I've been working on it.

There are always obstacles though. I upped my intake of the ace-inhibitor, which meant I needed to re-fill my RX sooner. Because I'm the health-conscious sort, I ran down to Kaiser from my house with a check, my Kaiser card and, just in case, my driver's license, to get a refill. By running back as well, I would make it a 5K workout.

The orderlies brought my bottle of pills to the counter and asked for the co-pay. I gave them my check for the stated amount, along with my driver's license. They already had my medical card.

They got antsy and called the manager over. She looked at my check and imperiously refused to take it, demanding that I pay by a credit card, which of course I didn't have on me. (Kaiser takes checks.)

The problem? My check, although it had my name printed on it, didn't have an address printed on it. It's a privacy thing.

The petty official acted absolutely dumbfounded that I could have checks without an address printed on them. She asked if anyone anywhere ever accepted my checks. Pointing to the check number, 1144, I said, "Sure, eleven hundred and forty three businesspersons have so far without a problem. And besides, I'm a customer of yours, and have been for ten years. You have my address on file."

Don't you hate it when officious types just make stuff up? I only got my meds by stonily refusing to run home and come back with a credit card. My "healthy outing" definitely raised my b/p.

Anyway, I went to the blood center today in mid-afternoon so I wouldn't be so close in time to my normal jangled, caffeine-induced morning state. This seemed to work as my b/p reading was lower, 168/87. However, the nurse was sure the machine was malfunctioning because it gave my pulse as 47. He was perplexed until I said I was a runner. "Oh," he said as he pranged my finger with a needle to get a blood sample.

He released a drop of my blood into a little jar of blue solution which had a disgusting, clumpy mass of blood from prior tests covering the bottom of the jar like a giant omeba. If your blood sinks into this mess, it has enough iron in it for you to donate blood. If it floats, you 're anemic and they won't take your blood.

I'm pretty sure that every woman on the planet is anemic according to this test and can't give blood, but for guys, usually their blood sinks into this slowy swirling bottom-clinging mass. Mine stopped halfway down, suspended in perfect stasis midway. Now what.

The nurse squeezed another blood drop out of my finger and took it into the next room. He came back sans the blood drop, happy. "Fifteen over three," he said in triumph. "I tested it in the other room." Apparently 15/3 is good. That's irony, I guess.

"What's wrong with that blood," I asked, indicating the red tear-shaped drop in the tube hovering immobile just above the clotted bloody cloud at the bottom.

"Oh, I got a tiny air bubble in it when I pulled it out of your finger into the crystalline tube. That's causing it to come to rest." Oh.

So I gave blood for the 78th time. But who's counting? I just hope the bloodletting doesn't impact too much on my effort in the hilly 9.3 mile anchor leg I'm doing in a marathon relay race in 40 hours.

It's about over

It's been happening a lot lately.

I go in to donate blood, they take my blood pressure, whistle, and either thereupon wink, take my b/p manually ten minutes later and take my blood, or they take my b/p again ten minutes later as a courtesy and immediately usher me out the door. Depends on which Nurse Ratched is running the donation center that day.

Today the machine read 182/106. I knew that wasn't going to fly. The head nurse was perplexed though. She said, "I don't think the machine is reading right. It has your pulse too low. I don't think it got your pulse."

She said she'd take my b/p "manually" in ten minutes and I thought I was going to get a pass and be able to donate. You know, maybe a b/p of 160/99. The lower number cutoff, I have learned, is 100. So the second time, manually, it often comes in at 99. Amazing.

But this Nurse Ratched lied. She sent another nurse over in ten minutes to hook me up to the machine again.

I asked her if she had had a nice New Year's. "No," she said. I guess I looked crestfallen because then she offered that her favorite Uncle had died that day, of a massive heart attack. At age 37. Oh.

I don't think my numbers changed. This nurse was also curious about my anomalous pulse reading. She asked if I "bothered" to exercise.

"Sure," I said, miffed that I don't look buff. "I run 30 miles a week."

"Oh, I see. That explains your very low pulse. What's going on in the rest of your life?" She meant my sky-high b/p.

"You get divorced and see what happens to you," I said a little defensively. That's the two-second version of a four-hour epic.

"Haven't been there but I hear ya," she said as she showed me the door. I assured her on my way out that her chances of "being there" were one in two.

I think my silly, compulsive goal of donating blood 100 times is about over, stalled at 77. This is about the twelfth consecutive time that I have had a troublesome reading, and I've actually been declined about three of the last five times. It's not worth the gas to go to the blood center every eight weeks anymore. Looking around the center, you'd think they need the business though. All I saw in there this morning donating were a few old men. Nobody else is eligible, I guess. The list of exclusions is vast and daunting. And if they come up with anything that you have, they report you to the health department. Good luck getting health insurance ever again in our wonderful society then, Mr. or Ms. Good Samaritan.

Oh yeah, I'm on medication for it. Been on different meds for it for a few years now. But you know, every mediation has a side effect. That's a whole 'nother story. The current witches' brew gives me a dry rasping cough that bedevils me in racing. You can hear me a long way off in races. It really bothers me. The last mixture had a completely different, but worse, side effect.

I left the blood center feeling furtive, like I'd done something wrong. So it goes.

You've got mail.

The t-shirt I won for donating blood arrived (see my next to last post). It's a beauty, too.

Standard white all cotton, size large so it's slightly too large, with the airline logo on the front in whose terminal I donated, and their motto printed across the back, "Safe. Clean. On Time. [Airline name.]" Hmm, this catchy saying isn't trademarked.

Well worth the wait and the worry.

But here's what I truly think. I'm glad this airline, or it's employees, are so well-intentioned and community-minded that they organized a blood drive. Kudos to them.

In other news, I recently received something in the mail from the Chicago Marathon. It was a certificate grandly certifying that on October 6, 2007, I "officially completed The 2007 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon." [Notice the capital T.] In 4:34:06 at a pace of 10:28 M/M. Ouch. It would have been even worse if my former running buddy A hadn't found me walking the course at MP 24 and brought me in at a trot. (Left: The dog days of summer, or fall, in downtown Chicago.)

They're trying to make nice now, after blaming the runners for a debacle of their own making? What a fraud. That was The Chicago Fun Run. They said so at the time, when they sent uniformed police officers wading onto the course to force runners to walk upon the threat of felony arrest. Now it's back to having been a marathon again? (Right: A kept me barely ahead of the No-More-Running Police in Chicago.)

A Bloody Worry

It was a worrisome call. My voice-mail message at work disclosed that it was Patti at the Cincinnati airport and it was about the blood donation I made there in early May. Could I call her please?

What would you think? Returning home from the Flying Pig Marathon, I had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so I followed some signs to a local blood donation center. They raised their eyebrows at my blood pressure ("Is it always this high?") but took my blood anyway. I left a pint lighter, my 75th lifetime donation (I'm a runner. I write this stuff down). I really do it for the cookies and soda you get afterwards.

If you actually read all the stuff they tell you to beforehand, it would scare you. It's bad to have gone to Africa, England, Europe, or the Channel Islands, to have been in the American military since 1980, to have decorated your body, to have had sex, to have treated baldness, to have taken drugs, or to have cavorted with certain people. (Oh no, I don't think any of them ever did any of that. Shall I call them up and ask them?)

And if you have AIDS or something, they'll not only tell you but they'll report you too. You'll never get insurance in this country again! No good deed goes unpunished!

As I listened to Patti's message, I was hoping that it was the West Nile Virus they were going to tell me I had, and not something awful like Hep C or HIV. Not that I do ever do anything fun beyond running 26 miles to be at risk for those diseases. That's plenty of fun, right?

I finally got ahold of Patti after her days off. She knew exactly who I was the instant I said my name. "Oh, yessir, I have your file right here! Do you remember giving blood earlier this month at the airport in Cincinnati?"

I swallowed hard. "Yes," I whispered.

"You won a t-shirt. Where shall we send it?"

Mission Accomplished

I set a goal this year of donating blood seven times. This is a little tricky to do since you have to wait eight weeks between each blood donation. Doing the math, 52 weeks divided by 8 weeks' deferral period each time, seems to indicate six donations per year. But if you get started early in the year and donate again each time as soon as you are eligible to, you can make it to seven donations in a calendar year.

Seven finger-pricks to test your blood's iron content, and seven needle inserts to take the blood, how fun. Actually, it's not bad. And you feel so smug about your goodness afterwards.

In 2007, I first donated blood on January 2d. I donated every eight weeks thereafter, culminating in my seventh donation earlier this month. I am proud of this effort.

For my next trick, I intend to donate blood 100 times in my lifetime. I am three quarters of the way there, currently working on my nine gallon pin (units of blood donated).

A Bloody Business

Donating Blood. Just 1 2 Finish posted something interesting. He's a regular blood donor apparently.

He went out for a five-mile run and crashed. He wondered if something was wrong. He had a marathon he was gettin' ready for!

Then he remembered. He had given blood the day before. He had a paucity of red blood cells and his body rebelled at the exertion. It demanded some respect (in the form of time). It's a situation many runners encounter, I suspect, because I'll bet lots of runners donate blood regularly.

How Often? If I'm around, I donate blood whenever the Red Cross mobile donation center comes to my agency, which is four times a year. I have good blood, O+, which can be used for any person with RH positive blood. The Red Cross is after me all the time for it.

What About Later? The instructions afterwards are to drink plenty of fluids and not to do anything physically demanding like lifting weights for the rest of the day. If you ask them about the next day, it gets a little more uncertain and vague. But here's my experience.

It's Effect, a personal guide. Fast Runs. Hours after a blood donation, I have run in a very competitive 3K race. It seemed to have no effect.

The day after a blood donation, I have run a 5K race. It seemed to have no effect.

Slow Runs. The day after a blood donation I have run an 8 mile LSD. It seemed to have no effect.

Two days after a blood donation, I have run a sixteen mile LSD. After seven miles, I slowed down. After 12 miles I really slowed down. Miles fifteen and sixteen were a stumble-bum affair where I was panting and exhausted.

Two days after a blood donation, I have run a twenty-three mile LSD, with a 90 minute rest at the midway point. I was literally shuffling along the last four or five miles, dead tired, counting the miles off as I fantasized about the blessed moment when I'd arrive back at my house at the end.

Marathons. Last year, the Red Cross unit came to my workplace on the Wednesday before the Sunday when I was going to run the New York City Marathon. I decided that donating blood four days before a marathon race was too risky, so on the Friday prior to the Red Cross showing up at work, I went to the hospital to make a blood donation.

Nine days later, my marathon was going fine. I felt great. I was sailing along, with a 3:45 definitely within reach. I even had an escort the last ten miles, pacing me.

At MP 21 I suddenly just broke into a walk. Just like that. I didn't even call out to my escort that I was slowing down. She went on down Fifth Avenue clearing space for me and I wasn't even there anymore (NYCM is crowded). After a short while she had to double back and find me. This happened more than once. (That's me at the 2006 NYCM, # 16976. I was doing just fine on the Queensboro Bridge around MP 17.)

I walked five or six more times going to Central Park. Run a little, walk a little. I'd just...walk. I finished in 3:52:34 only because my running buddy spurred me on to greater effort the last mile. While I ran to the finish line in the roadway at the end, she ran behind the spectator barricades, loudly exhorting me on. She was tremendous.

(By MP 24, I was no longer doing just fine. I was merely seeking the end.) I have thought about my sudden and casual surrender to fatigue those last five miles at NYC and come to the conclusion that my blood donation nine days earlier very possibly cost me my BQ. But if my blood donation really helped somebody, then it was worth it, because if running is life, then life is life too. However, I'm not donating blood again until after Chicago.

What's Inside of You?

Last week I gave blood for the 70th time. What this says about me is that I lead a dull life.

I have no tattoos or recent body piercings. I haven’t had extended stays in the UK or lived in the Channel Islands. I wasn’t born in Africa. I haven’t had sex with a prostitute or a man or recently with a woman who does wild and crazy things that I know about. (Sigh.) Boring.

The exclusionary rules for blood donation get longer and longer. As I read them each time I wonder who, exactly, is left that they can take blood from? Besides me I mean?

They asked if I had ever taken propecia. I didn’t know what that was. I was told it’s for BPH. Oh. Well, not yet anyways. It’s also used for baldness. Ohhh. Would blood banks be forced to close if I was a little more vain about my bald pate?

They asked if there was any Creutzfeldt-Jakob in my family. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t heard of any Creutzfeldt-Jakob in my family but then again, I don’t know every single one of my relatives.

A friend has A positive blood. She can’t give blood because, like just about every woman I know, she’s anemic. Or maybe she just tells me that when I ask if she wants to go to the donation center with me because she has a lot more fun than I do.

I guess her blood floats when they drop it into the little vial of clear liquid to check it for iron. Her blood apparently doesn’t have enough iron in it. She must not know about Fred Flintstone Vitamin pills with Iron.

My blood apparently has iron because it always sinks in the vial. The technician and I sit there and watch the drop of blood lazily glide to the bottom. It’s suspenseful, like watching the Titanic slowly slip beneath the surface.

Anyway, my friend tells me that except for the iron thing, she would love to go to the blood donation center with me. She says this is because she likes taking blood tests. She gets an A+ every time. She loves that story. She tells it better than I do.

I’m O positive, which means my blood can be given to every person with RH positive blood. The only blood better than mine is O negative, which can be given to anyone. So they like for me to donate. I get calls about every two months from organizations seeking my blood. There are two competing blood-collecting systems here in Northern Virginia, Inova and the American Red Cross, and this situation doubles my calls.

I want to donate blood 100 times. I’m seventy percent of the way there. Runners are obsessed with numbers, right? Triple digits is my number for blood donations. I just made it up, years ago before I was a runner. So you see, the obsession that eventually led to running has always been there.

I have eight pins designating gallon donations in my cufflink box atop my dresser. Four more gallon donation pins sit in my desk drawer, awaiting transfer to my cufflink box upon completion of my task. Will I stop when I get to one hundred? I don’t know, but probably not.