Giving Some Life

My mom had planned to go to the blood center to give blood. She figured it would be fun to take me with her. My Mimi came over to watch my little sister and we took her car because Daddy had Mama’s car that day. On the way there I watched the DVD Casper, but before I got deep into the movie we were pulling into the parking lot of the Methodist Church.

We took my mom’s camera so that I could take pictures and do an interview with one of the phlebotomists. Mama took a picture of the outside of the bloodmobile and then we went inside. Then Mama had to fill out some paperwork and I started taking pictures of what was happening. We didn’t have to wait very long before Mama was called into the room where they stuck her finger to check her iron level. Her blood drop floated! This meant that her iron level was low. The man then put her blood in a tube and placed it in a machine that swirled her blood around really fast. This machine is called a centrifuge. The man then said that her blood was okay to give blood.

A lady asked my mom which arm she wanted to donate with. That told her which chair to have Mama sit in. Then I started taking pictures of Mama in the chair. Next, she gave Mama a toy to squeeze to find her vein. Once she found it, she cleaned her arm with orange-brown greasy stuff. Mama called it Betadine which is an antiseptic (which means it kills germs). Finally, she put a cloth on Mama’s arm and in went the needle. Mama was smiling and I took another picture. Then the lady attached the tubes to the needle and filled them up and labeled them in order. I watched as the blood flowed from Mama’s arm into a long, skinny tube and down into a bag. When the bag was full the lady cut the long, skinny tube and kinked it into the shape of little sausages. She took me to the front of the bus and showed me how she put the tubes into alphabetical order. She then asked my mom if she wanted a drink. Mama said no but she said, “Please give it to my son.” I asked if I could have a straw.

Then Mama took a picture of me and Ms. Dana Fagg, the phlebotomist who had helped my mom, because I had interviewed her about her job. This is the end of our story about the Bloodmobile.

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