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What's inside is not allowed...
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Aug 11, 2008 11:06 pm
1802 Views
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In the past, when I was in college and in the Army, I was a consistent blood donor. I am type O negative, which is relatively rare. I liked the feeling of giving, of helping someone who I would never meet. There was also some pride involved, not being scared of needles like so many are. When I donated, I would run through the list of questions and not even have to think about them--no no no, no diseases, no suspect behaviors, no nothing. I was clean, always had been. Just perfunctory questions, then I would get stuck and get my cookie and juice, and be on my way.
The local hospital has been running PSAs lately looking for blood donors, especially O-negative. I hadn't done it in years, so I figured I would get back into the habit.
I made an appointment, and went in this evening. I sat down with the questionnaire, and---uh oh. "Have you received a body piercing within the last 12 months?" Well, not like they meant... but I have had needles stuck through my chest, connected to rubber bands, and pulled on. And it was great. I left the question blank until the nurse came back.
Okay. A few more, and then: "If you are male, have you had sexual contact with another male, even if only once, between 1977 and the present?" Hm. Well, how do they define sexual contact? Left that one blank, too.
I though that I could probably second-guess the questions, and put down the answers I knew they needed to hear. But I'm consciously working on cultivating more honesty in my statements and my actions, and this was a pretty clear-cut opportunity to do so. I told the nurse that I had been pierced within the last few months. By a professional? (Because they are looking for sterile technique having been used.) No, not by a professional--the guy's not a piercing artist by trade, he's a computer programmer. His technique was scrupulously sterile, but...
So I was denied on that count. For twelve months from the date of the piercing. I didn't tell the nurse that I fully intend to be and am looking forward to being pierced again (because it totally ROCKED!).
I also asked about sexual contact with another male. Basically penetration and oral sex; and he almost sheepishly told me that they are working to revise the donation rules, to narrow that "1977 to present" down to something that more accurately reflects the current state of research into HIV/AIDS, and doesn't just ban everyone. But that's in the future sometime, maybe.
My contact hasn't included penetration or oral (but I'm not ruling it out). So that wouldn't have kept me from donating today. But the piercing took care of that.
So, in the years intervening between the last time I donated blood and today, my life has changed a lot, and some of those changes have made it so that I am no longer a candidate to donate blood. I left feeling good about my choice to be honest, but also really disappointed, and a little sad. This was just a little unexpected. I guess this lifestyle is a door you go through, and you can't necessarily expect to always be welcome on the other side of it afterward.
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