Battered and Bruised!

The school has had a blood drive this week, sponsored by the AD Nursing School and the Student Nurse Organization (of which I am the president). So I felt obligated to try and give blood. I normally am rejected due to my eczema or low iron, but I passed this time and they wanted me to give platelets. I agreed and they hooked me up to the apepharesis (sp?) machine. It pulls out whole blood, spins out the different elements and then "returns" the parts that it doesn't want. On the first return cycle, I felt my arm begin to bubble up and immediately told the phlebotomist that the needle had infiltrated and something needed to be done, but instead of pulling it, she put a heat pack on it and tried to force it on through the cycles. Each time, it got worse and worse. Finally, they gave up and pulled it. I did give enough platelets to save for a pediatric patient, but nowhere near the full amount. By the time they finally pulled the needle, I was hurting from my wrist to my shoulder. I went over to the nursing building and found one of my instructors and had her look at my arm and told her what happened. She told me that she had a similar experience, checked me out and told me to take it easy on that arm. I drove home and crashed once I got there--I was beat. Woke up and my arm hurt just as bad. During the night, we had a really bad storm and we lost power, therefore I lost water (I hate wells--I want city water again...oh the wonderful taste of chlorine!). Yesterday morning, it was storming, we had no power or water, and my arm still hurt, so I just went back to bed. Yesterday was the first time I've EVER skipped a nursing class. My arm looked bad yesterday, but looks worse today. See for yourself, although this picture doesn't do it justice...this is the reason that I won't give platelets anymore!