The only blood I generally see before work is in my bathroom sink.
Like a zillion other guys, I push my luck and try to coax one more shave out of thin slices of stainless steel that are 15 days old. Cuts, scrapes and nicks are often the penalties from these ill-advised, jagged jogs across chin and cheek. Coins forfeited by Gillette are harvested by Curad.
Didn’t shave this morning, but I lost blood anyway. I was at the Guilderland YMCA at 8 a.m. for a 50-minute virtual bicycle ride, and then hustled over to Ellis Hospital for a blood test. My doctor insisted — old George swears by these things, and a few drops of my positive or negative will tell him all sorts of things about my corpuscles, calories and cholesterol. We’re meeting for deep breaths, reflexes and the usual regimen next week.
Plenty of people were ready for pinpricks this morning. There were probably 10 ahead of me, and I paged through the latest AARP magazeine — nice interview with 81-year-old Sidney Poitier this month. After about an hour, I got the call — “Wilkin, Jeff Wilkin” — and bled information all over the wooden counter. Date of birth, address, emergency contact were all among the syllables spilled.
From there, I was escorted into a small room equipped with a dark orange, padded reclining chair. The curly-haired, brunette technician seemed to be in a good mood, which put me in a good mood — when people are using needles or dental drills on personal parts of my person, I prefer smiles to scowls.
“How’s business,” I asked the woman.
“Bloody good,” she smiled. Think she had heard that question before. “Seems like everyone came in at once this morning,” she added.
The tech also tipped me off to another hospital “draw station” near Sunnyside Hospital, a place generally less crowded than the Ellis rooms. Wish I had known about this place at 9:15.
Small talk faded, and a thin ribbon was tied around my right arm, near the elbow. I’m not squeamish, but never liked needles as a kid. I have not overcome this prejudice, so looked to the left while the tech put the metal bite on me and slipped away with a piece of my heart. She was faster than some of the mosquitoes who visited the “draw station” in my back yard this past summer.
A piece of tape and a gauze pad sealed the leak. But because I was still in my gym clothing — I had changed shirts before the carnage — I was concerned the wound would color the bright yellow button-down shirt I had planned for today’s office festivities.
“Bleed? You’re not going to bleed,” the technician said, suppressing a gale of laughter. But she gave me a bandage, just in case.
And she was right. The only red spots on my shirt today are on a garish tie racked with red, green, orange and blue billiard balls.
Bloody clever, these technicians!
