2024, Family, Health, Medicine, Uncategorized

Fainting Away

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Every eight weeks we get a call from the Memorial Blood Center.  I assume it’s because her name is before mine in the alphabet; YA gets the first call and usually before I even get my call, she has come to me to pick out a good date for us. 

We went down to our local center as usual but unlike usual, YA got light-headed afterwards and instead of grabbing a snack, put her head down on the table where we were sitting.  This was like an alarm bell going off in the center.  Suddenly there were five folks around us, one bringing a cool cloth, one bringing a wheelchair, two helping to get YA into the wheelchair and one poor gal, who was just hovering but didn’t seem to have a specific job.  YA actually lost consciousness for a second in the wheelchair.

The phlebotomist (what a great word) who had done my draw was the one who appointed himself as YA’s guardian while she recovered.  He was very knowledgeable and answered all our questions.  OK, all of my questions.  He was very clear about what he was doing and how long before the next “check-in”.  It was very comforting for the anxious mother.  YA stayed reclined for about 45 minutes before we took off.  She wanted Taco Bell on the way home and then she spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, watching tv. 

I asked if this has soured her on giving blood.  She said she doesn’t think so.  Guess we’ll know in another six weeks or so!

Have you ever seen those fainting goats? 

37 thoughts on “Fainting Away”

  1. I have never seen a fainting goat.

    On the subject of a blood draw, my first donation, when I was in college, taught me not to hurry. I was late for class so wanted to run away immediately. I “swooned”, and was taken in hand by a wise woman who made me wait for about 15 minutes, drink, and treat myself in a kindly and slow way. That memory has stuck with me.

    When my children were young in Taiwan, I would take one or both with me when I gave blood. I told them that I didn’t like the needle, so their job was to look me in the eye as it was inserted into the vein so that I wouldn’t get scared and watch. I could see their eyes shifting back and forth from my eyes to my arm. What it taught them was that giving blood is normal, and that the needle isn’t something to fear.

    Recently, in retirement, I’ve re-connected with giving blood. In the USA it’s much more complicated than in Taiwan. The upsetting part is the follow up letter. Twice now I’ve received notice that a marker for syphilis has been found in my blood. The letter mentions the probability of a false positive, but still, it doesn’t go down well with my spouse of 44 years.

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  3. You speak as if we know of fainting goats… what fainting goats? (Will look it up in a bit.)

    Husband used to give blood, and every few months we get a phone msg… I should go in next time they have a community blood draw, but it always comes in some busy week…

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  4. I’ve been a blood donor for 20+ years. I do the double reds, or power reds. No issues for me. Sandra gave blood sporadically until a year or two ago when she had two fainting/dizzy spells the evening after donations. Not sure why because those were the first times ever. But she stopped giving because fainting and cracking her head open isn’t worth it.

    Like BiR, I’m not familiar with fainting goats, either. Perhaps the TBers need a video tutorial. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  6. I can’t imagine the evolutionary advantage for the goats to faint the way they do. I suppose it could startle a predator, but not for long. I I ought to donate blood as I am RH-. I haven’t donated for a long time, as they don’t do it at work any longer.

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    2. Their evolutionary advantage may be in their novelty. In the wild they may have been quickly extinct. They persist, perhaps, only domestically.

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  7. Did women actually faint that way in the Victorian era? Have the Vapors, as they said? My son sent me a story right out of the Victorian era. In Columbus, OH a law firm now has AI eviction attornies.

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  8. Rise and Fall Down, Baboons,

    I have not seen fainting goats in person, but I see the videos when they make the rounds. I always wonder if they are narcoleptic. I also do not find them entertaining, but pathetic.

    Until recently Lou gave a lot of blood. He has a pin that puts him in the 9 gallon club. He can no longer give due to his prostate cancer diagnosis. Several times he became faint, although he never actually lost consciousness. They would have him sit awhile, then have some apple juice and a cookie to stabilize his blood sugar.

    OT: Phoebe update: Phoebe is just resting now and continuing to recover. Yesterday she ate too much because she is so hungry, then it came back up. One back leg seems to have recovered and one is still stiff and sore, not fully functioning. But after four days of treatment she is much better than she was. Yesterday the clinic called to get a progress report and they seemed to feel she was doing well.

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  9. I have also seen videos of the fainting goats.

    I used to give blood regularly and have a permanent divot in my arm at the optimal draw point. Last time I went in I had passed the eight gallon point.

    I stopped donating during Covid and haven’t resumed. It’s perplexing. Back when I was working I could always manage to schedule a donation but now I can never seem to find the time.

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  10. For most of my adult life I wasn’t allowed to donate blood because I weighed less than the required 110 lbs. (I am short and small framed – most people consider me to be tiny). I am above that now but not by much. My dad donated regularly. I believe he reached the 10 gallon mark. My younger sister lived in England in the early 80s (when mad cow disease was rampant over there). She received a letter this year stating that she is now finally eligible to donate.

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  13. I’ve seen the videos of fainting goats too. As far as I know, I’ve never seen a live fainting goat.

    I haven’t donated blood for about a year now. I donated the “Power Red” too. I have Rh- blood and I’m a universal donor. The last time I was there, the young and inexperienced phlebotomist didn’t do a good job of setting the needle into my vein. It slipped out of the vein as the donation proceeded. I could feel and see it out of place and it was quickly uncomfortable. I let her know and she came back and started digging around in my arm, trying to replace it in my vein. I was trying to tell her that she had to stop, withdraw it, get a fresh needle, and start over in a different vein because she’d blown that one. She didn’t. She called a team member over who seemed as inexperienced as she was. This one started digging around in my arm too. Neither could get it back in my vein and suddenly I realized that these sincere but incompetent young women were going to destroy my big healthy vein. I suddenly felt faint and I must have looked pale. I said, “STOP.” And they did. They removed it and gave me something to press on the site. I could see my arm beginning to discolor and I felt even more faint. I was out for a few seconds and they were covering me with warm blankets and giving me apple juice and a cookie.

    My arm was discolored and bruised almost immediately. It turned a very dark blue, almost black. It covered a large area of my arm, from above the elbow almost to my wrist.

    I gave a review of the experience a few days later. It wasn’t good, but I said I didn’t want those young women to lose their jobs. They just needed more experience before they were released to inflict damage on someone else.

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    2. I had a similar but not as extreme experience once with a novice phlebotomist. Finally a more expert one came over and put it right. I have a vein the blood drawers like and I can produce a pint in five minutes. Np permanent damage.

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      1. I have good veins as well, especially my left arm. I’ve been giving blood for close to 40 years and have rarely had a bad experience at all. But I do know that the minute they mess with the needle once it’s already in the arm, I’m gonna have a bruise. They won’t let me do double reds because of the bubble that I got the first time that I tried.

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    3. Last August while I was in the hospital and had emergency surgery, I had several blood transfusions, intravenous antibiotics, saline, and other medications. Because of my poor veins, nurses were regularly checking and flushing out the PIC lines to make sure things were flowing as they should. At least once a day a new PIC had to be started because another vein had collapsed. By the end of the fifth day, both forearms and hands were one big bruised and tender mess, but I needed one more transfusion of antibiotics before I could be released to the rehab unit. The first phlebotomist managed to seat a PIC line, but it was obvious, even to me, that it was extremely precarious, and sure enough, it failed within an hour. A second lab tech was summoned. She took one look and said “I don’t want to screw this up, I’m calling in Mr. A, our most experienced technician.” About an hour later a young man, Mr. A, showed up. He worked on my right hand with heating pads, and various patting and pinching techniques to try to find a good vein for well over an hour. He was calm, gentle and patient, and if he was nervous about the prospect of success, he didn’t show it. He was finally successful, and I got the remaining dose of antibiotics. As it happened, he was celebrating his 7th anniversary at Regions Hospital that day.

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      2. I worked with a RN who was skilled at starting IVs that way. He could find a vein where it just didn’t seem possible. He was so gentle and skilled. I still admire him over all the nurses I ever worked with.

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      3. I am what is known as a “tough stick” for phlebotomists. I have a had a range of experiences, but I know the feeling of wishing you could designate that one gifted person as your official lab tech for all time.

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  14. I started donating blood when I was 17, and I did it regularly whenever I was in Denmark. Because my veins are small and difficult to locate, and the process of tapping my blood was slow, it was usually an hour-long procedure. Over the years I’ve have had lots of phlebotomists give up and call in a more experienced colleague. In Denmark the offerings after giving blood included really good hot tea, coffee, fruit juice, and beer. I recall one time when, during a protracted brewery strike, you couldn’t buy beer anywhere in Copenhagen, the blood donation centers were the only places that still had beer.

    After I moved to the US, I resumed donating blood in Cheyenne, and continued to do so on a regular basis wherever I lived. That ended in 1995 I was diagnosed with cancer. I have never felt faint, lightheaded, or weak after donating blood.

    I’m glad to say I’ve never seen a fainting goat, I think I would find that disturbing.

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  15. My participation in the Pfizer Covid vaccination testing program was nearly over. This required numerous blood draws over many months. Not a problem. At the last one, the staff asked if I would allow more draws at one setting. The samples would be kept in storage as a baseline and available for future analysis. It would pay a lot more. I hadn’t volunteered for pay anyway, so said, “Go ahead.”
    They filled 10 vials. It made me feel a little whoosy but not bad. I shed my blood for 45’s vaccine which he now repudiates. Sad.

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  19. The only goats I have seen were at the state fair, or at the farm of Barb in Blackhoof. Don’t recall ever seeing a fainting goat.

    From what I’ve read, they don’t actually faint, tey just fall over in moments of stress.

    I’ve had cats that did that.

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