Normally, I wouldn’t spill guts on a personal level, and I would rather be discussing sustainable landscaping, ecological restoration, or restoring our nation to a sustainable transportation system, but just as the insane right wing is foreclosing on these things and has stopped Obama’s tentative steps towards these things, the awful economy and a considerable amount of crappy luck has also foreclosed many options for my family, which has pushed us into survival mode, despite my professional prowess and design and implementation of award-winning projects. One thing I have come to realize is that it is more expensive to be poor than it is to be middle or upper class for the same services.
As the last dying hours of 2011 wind down as a capstone to an awful year, one in which my mother in law died, my daughter contracted Lyme disease, one of our cats got kidney stones and required a very expensive operation, I totaled my car, the washing machine broke requiring a major repair, multiple electronic devices failed in the house, including my laptop, I fought and failed to get a loan modification through Bank of America and was served a foreclosure notice on Thanksgiving weekend, and weather and economic conditions, along with a bad economy and job losses, have caused my family income to fall through the floor. As a 99er forced into contract work for income, I have not had W-2 employment since working for the Census in 2010, and my wife lost her job with home health care after her patient died and Scott Walker canceled further enrollments in the program, among other ways in which he began to systematically destroy Wisconsin's economy and hopes. I’d discuss further, but that is the subject of another diary.
However, I digress…follow me below the filigree to see one way I tried to cope with these horrid circumstances in these times of hanging on by one’s fingernails. At least I still had, and still have my health…without which I would not have had the option of selling bodily fluids for compensation…
Starting in January 2011, as work dried up for the winter, I was desperate. My wife still had her home health aide work, but I had no income. Low wage entry level jobs in retail or assembly were not an option, as employers did not want to hire me, having a lot of experience in my field and a degree from an elite college, along with graduate coursework from our top ranked, but declining state university. I had 3 mouths to help feed, and had to put fuel in the vehicle so I could at least get to do or bid some contract work. So, I decided to go for what the poor college student or destitute young person does to make some cash…donate plasma. Rarely is a professional with elite education and experience forced to do this. Hence the blood for oil…most of my plasma proceeds have gone for fuel in the vehicle, so I could give the limited contract work income, unemployment compensation from my wife, to use for pay for other things.
So I drove to the nearest plasma center which was about 25 miles away. I spent about 2 hours going through new donor screening in which you have to detail your medical history, and they do a medical screening, and another hour to wait to donate. These long waits tended to be typical of the plasma donation experience…the rotten economy and location of the donation center in a poor area (Beloit, WI) tended to ensure a steady, heavy clientele. You have to be healthy, 18-65, over 110 lbs, and have not lost or donated blood for the past 60 days, not donated in the past 7 days from another plasma donation center, and have no history of cancer, heart disease, diabetes/low blood sugar, have had bovine insulin, HIV, hepatitis since age 11, recent tattoos or piercings, baldness medication, Accutane (acne medication) or received blood work overseas in Europe due to concerns over mad cow (prion diseases) to which the blood supply was exposed, among other things. Even if you have a cough, cold or runny nose, you cannot donate.
Prior to donating the first time, and every time thereafter, you fill out electronically a questionnaire asking health questions pertaining to these things. And if you lie on the questionnaire, you are banned from donating at that center. And generally, you can’t donate if you live outside of the plasma center’s service area…this one was the closest to me so I was in its service area. After the first donation, and you are registered, they put you into the system, which recognizes you with a fingerprint reading when you come in to donate.
After successfully completing the questionnaire, you are called into a screening booth in the order you came in the door and completed the questionnaire. If it is busy, it can sometimes take an hour of waiting for a screening. You are checked in at the screening by reading your fingerprint and asked if you understood and truthfully answered the medical questions by a screening person. At the screening, they weigh you, which has a bearing on how much plasma you can donate, and hence how much you are paid. Lighter and smaller people get a smaller payment, as they donate less. After you are weighed, the screener pricks your finger for a blood sample, in which the blood is tested for adequate proteins, and one of your fingernails is marked with a UV-activated invisible polish that is used to identify the fact you donated at that particular plasma center.
Each plasma center within a 50 mile radius marks a different fingernail with the UV polish in order to identify the fact that you donated at that center…this is done to prevent multiple donations and cheating the system. Apparently in the past plasma donors would attempt to donate at multiple plasma centers as much as possible to make more money…this is dangerous as the body does not regenerate plasma quickly enough for more than 2 donations to be done in each 7-day period. There is a UV reader that verifies the fingernail markings, and they look at it before and after your nails are marked.
You are also given a blood pressure test, pulse and temperature is taken in the screening. If you are nervous, and have a high pulse rate, you can’t donate, but they let you sit down for 15-20 minutes to retake pulse and blood pressure, which if it goes down to acceptable levels, you can then donate, but if it does not, you are sent home. They also check your arms, elbows and hands…any significant wounds, evidence of needle puncture, or rash disqualifies you from donating. One day I had a mild rash on my arms, having had minor skin irritation from handling evergreen brush at work. They were so paranoid about this they would not let me donate, despite the fact that my rash receded only a few hours later, as I knew it would. Similarly, any kind of fever or high blood pressure is cause for denial of donation (the donation center calls it a “deferral”).
Finally, if you pass the blood tests and the other medical screenings, you are prompted to sign an electronic pad for consent, after which the screener tells you how much you will be paid for the current donation. If you are lucky, and it is not busy, you can proceed directly to the donation floor. If it is busy, you can sometimes wait again, up to another hour.
When your name is called, you go to the donor floor. You lie down on a fairly comfortable recumbent bed which props your head relatively upright without a pillow. There are two levels of staff present, a “DST” lower level person who sets up and takes down the donation tubing and paraphernalia, and puts away the collected bottles of plasma, and the phlebotomists and group leads, who actually put the needles in your arm to draw the blood. Competency levels can vary widely among these staff, depending on experience or whether they were having a good or bad day. In 59 donations I made last year, about 10 percent of them were botched in some way, with two of them severely botched. Unlike the rosy portrayals on the plasma donation center web sites, this side effect is not mentioned.
The procedure begins when the phlebotomist feels for a vein. Usually you can pick the arm to donate from, but if a good solid vein cannot be found, another arm needs to be selected. The area is then wiped with iodine for sterilization, a cuff is put on the arm, which constricts during a “pull”, where blood is pulled out for plasma extraction. The phlebotomist calibrates the machine for the amount of plasma extraction at this time as well, after verifying your personal information (last 4 digits of SSN). Then the phlebotomist checks the vein and inserts the needle. Disposable tubing and a centrifuge bottle are used, which are swapped out with each donor. It takes experience and a certain amount of “feel” or intuition, to insert the needle correctly; usually it has to be done at the outset, for if it is not positioned just right at the beginning, repositioning it in the vein is usually a lost cause and can cause a botched procedure or a blown vein.
It typically takes me 50-60 minutes from inserting the needle to the time the donation is over. Pumping the hand during the draw cycle increases the flow rate and decreases the time to completion. There are typically 4 on-off cycles where blood is extracted and plasma centrifuged and extracted out, followed by return of the blood cells to the body. These first 4 cycles are followed by a final return of blood cells accompanied by a saline/electrolyte solution to compensate for the moisture lost by the plasma extraction. After all is done, the needle is removed and the insertion point bandaged. All in all, the whole process, which the plasma center web sites say should take 1.5 hours from walking in to walking out, is rarely completed in that length of time. 2 to 2.5 hours is more typical.
By government regulation, you can only donate plasma twice in any given 7 day period, with a minimum of 2 days between donations. The equipment (needles, tubing, plasmaphoresis receptacle) is single use, and is thrown away between donors. I don’t know the fate of the donation materials; I assume they are incinerated or landfilled, not processed for recycling.
Plasma is used for a variety of vital proteins and therapies, so payment aside, you are benefiting others by donating it.
What do they pay you?
I was compensated for donating the first five times at $50 for the first 2 times, $40 for the second 2 times, and $50 for the fifth donation. About 9 months after my last donation, they reduced the compensation for new donors by 5%, as well as for veteran donors.
Previously, they paid $20 for the first weekly donation, and between $ 25, $35 and $40 for the second, depending on body weight. The pay cut was $2 per donation back in October, which actually hurts those with no other income source greatly. So much for helping the most vulnerable among us.
The payment is in the form of loading a debit card, which is poorly run, due to the bank (Citibank) having glitches in its system, and their having to exact tribute, or their pound of flesh for administering it. Another example of the banksters preying on the most vulnerable, dinging you 25 to 50 cents on debit transactions, and $2 for withdrawing cash using the card, among various other fees. You are allowed only one free transaction per blood donation, which needs to be a signature transaction, not a PIN-based debit or cash-out. The idea of dinging the donor for using this card when the dollar amounts transacted are so low and miniscule is unconscionable; and akin to other bank fee insanity, such as debit cards for unemployment compensation. This is one among many insults to poor people, who have no choice. While I realize that this method is convenient for the plasma center, there should be a way to do it without soaking the poor donor with fees.
Also, glitches in the system are common, freezing the card.
I once had to wait several hours for funds to become available, negating the advantage of an electronically loaded debit card, and once was embarrassed at the gas station since I pumped gas below the card balance, only to find that it was declined. Once, my card was frozen for 24 hours. The main usage I had for this card was for small transactions, and I used the vast majority of the money for gasoline, and occasional groceries or cat food. I tried to make sure I wiped out the balance in 2 or fewer transactions after the donation to minimize the fees assessed.
To add insult to injury.
I thought the plasma center would be an excellent place to get recall signatures for Scott Walker. Almost to a person, everybody I talked to detested Walker, including the (probably poorly paid) employees (many of whom also donate plasma to supplement their income). This is especially given that most of the people donating are hard up, and realize, correctly, that Scott Walker has nothing to offer them. It was prudent to ask the center management first before collecting recall signatures. The woman snidely refused, citing the fact that she would have to allow everyone to solicit for signatures on the premises, including church groups. She also said I couldn’t gather signatures on the sidewalk outside either, despite it being public property. I have a feeling she was probably a closet supporter of Walker, perhaps because the more poor and desperate people are and are ruined by Walker’s decimation of the safety net, the more inclined they would be to donate plasma.
Donations end for two months due to botched procedure
Unfortunately, the web sites and the FAQs about plasma donation neglect to mention there can be fairly serious errors made by the donation staff that can cause fairly big problems. Minor problems can also occur, such as clotting, which tends to happen if you don’t drink enough hydrating fluids such as water, juice or milk in the hours before the donation. This can lead to a longer donation time, or even force you to switch arms during the donation. This happened three times out of my 59 donations during the past year. More serious is blowing through or missing the vein altogether. This causes a phenomenon called infiltration. This happened to me twice, the first time causing the blood to miss the needle and bleed out under the skin. A hematoma about 2 inches wide resulted, and I could not donate again for two weeks until the blood color turned yellow. The second time was more serious. An attempt was made to stick my right arm, the angle of the needle was wrong, and blood did not flow. So they gave up and went to my left arm. That flowed well for two cycles, but after that the flow stopped, with the machine beeping in protest. The angle of the needle looked funny, and did not appear to line up with the vein, so they gave up on trying to draw out more blood. Then came an attempt to reposition, and then to start a return cycle which ended in catastrophic failure. The vein was breached, they could not return blood to the system, it began to hurt and tingle, and a large swelling ensued as the returned blood didn’t go to the circulatory system; rather it went into muscle and other tissue in a phenomenon known as infiltration. A large bruise later formed, which is still apparent 17 days after the accidental vein rupture. Since my blood was not properly returned, I was banned (deferred ) from donating for 56 days, and cannot donate plasma until mid-February. Unfortunately, this coincides with the slowest work period of the year for me, and I cannot afford to lose the $464 from the donations that I could have made if this error had not been made. Also, I lost out on the “silver” club, an honor for donors that give 60 or more donations in a calendar year. The donation in which my vein was blown was #59. The donation center gives points for donations and a bonus for reaching 60, and the points can be redeemed for gift cards.
Unfortunately, there is no legal recourse for the mistakes made that have deferred me from donating. There is no way to prove the negligence, and you sign a release acknowledging the risks of the donation. It’s just par for the course. Those who are financially secure never have to experience these things, unless they donate plasma as a public service. Then again, I have never met a wealthy person who donated plasma just to benefit society. They have a hard enough time parting with money, let alone bodily fluids. While my sacrifice of bodily fluids to keep gas in the car pales in comparison to those who have been killed or maimed in the Middle East to secure oil supplies, I have still had to lose things and risk health to keep the old clunker pickup rolling…
I have now lost that income, during a time with little to no work lined up. But I still have my good health, despite that bruised up arm, I can still work labor, design sustainable landscapes, and do expert site reviews, restoration projects and tree work. Unfortunately, I have only a few small jobs lined up until spring, and have fallen behind terribly on utilities and other expenses, and need to retain an attorney ASAP to defend my foreclosure complaint. I have sold nearly everything I have that would be in ready demand, and am typing this on a 4 year old laptop with a cracked screen. Now I have even lost my blood money for oil, and lack enough means to support my family of four, even as I occupy my own home for free while waiting for the ax to fall. 2011 couldn’t end soon enough.
Note, if anyone can help out with work opportunities for ecological projects or native landscaping in the upper Midwest or any other way to get through this, my family and I would be forever thankful. All of my relatives who currently don’t live with me are either deceased or cannot be found. Send me a Kos mail if you are feeling generous or would like a resume or references to see what I can do. Thank you so much for reading…..