Currently, I'm a phlebotomist by trade. I stick a (pretty darn big) needle in a person's arm and get a unit of blood from them that is then centrifuged and broken down into components and, within 24 hours, being transfused into 3 blessed people whose bodies' desperately need assistance fighting the physiological battles they are facing. If I'm doing my job well, you (as the donor) should hardly feel that needle. So today that's what I did--I stuck people, and tried my durndest to do it well.
The job is super experience for what I hope is to come in my life, but my favorite part of the day is interacting with donors. Today I was asked all sorts of questions about the process, about the physiology of the process, etc. Questions from "Is my blood blue inside me?" to "How old are you?" (haha) to "Are you going to run those tubes and see if I have herpes or something?" Yes, I've been doing this job 3 weeks and I've already heard some crazy things--I can't wait to see what's to come!
We were at a high school today and I just loved interacting with the students. They were inquisitive and funny and encouraging all in one! But, by far, my favorite part of the whole thing is teaching others to love physiology and the craziness of our bodies' design. Teaching the students that happened to sit on my bed all about clotting and how the blood clots so that "we can walk around with openings to the outside and not 'drain out'" is a really, really fun thing. Being able to tell an inquisitive girl that I don't have "to do anything to her" to make that hole stop bleeding and that I'm just going to let her body do that work is such a fun thing to do. I hope that they catch just a little of my awe at the sheer wonder of our bodies!
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