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Editorial I wish they wanted to suck my blood |
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When some people are bored, they watch TV. Others read a book, or go shopping. When I get bored, though, I pierce things. It’s not uncommon for me to grab a safety pin and shove it through my ear, just for sheer lack of productive things to do. When I’m bored and have money burning a hole in my pocket, I’ll splurge and get some cartilage punched out, or get a tattoo. Along with the need to decorate my body, though, comes a sense of guilt, because I have a rare blood type. Each time this type of boredom ensues, it unfortunately sets back the date of my next blood donor appointment. I’m not going to lie. I’m not afraid or grossed out to donate blood, by any means. I think I may be the only person I know who doesn’t mind having a large needle shoved into my arm and feel my own blood drain out of my body. The reason I didn’t mind not donating is because, last time I did, they punctured a vein or something. It hurt so badly I passed out afterward, and ended up with a half-inch-wide, six-inch-long, every-colour-of-the-rainbow-changing bruise that lasted for three weeks. I looked like a heroin addict for three whole weeks. Out of a sense of vengeance, the next week I decided to get pierced, even though I’d been keeping the blood donation thing in mind for quite a while, thus holding back from piercing anything. Now, though, as my animosity toward Canadian Blood Services has worn away, I feel guilty about my inability to donate. O negative blood is about as rare as you can get, and Canadian Blood Services is pumping out the message, “there is a special need for O negative donors at this time,” like crazy. Though they’ve decreased the restriction time for newly tattooed and pierced donors to six months, when it used to be a year, a restriction is still in effect. Although I understand the difficulty that would be involved in gauging the health standards of individual tattoo and piercing places, if O negative blood was really in high demand, they’d bend the rules for me. An entire organization shouldn’t actually bend the rules for me; they should bend them for everyone who gets work done at a place that uses clean and sterilized needles, and that has a valid certificate from Health Canada that states that they do so. Although it could be difficult to say that there was absolutely no offensive germ on a needle that just came out of a package, it’s also difficult to say that someone can’t cut himself in a kitchen with a knife that had an offensive germ on it. The infection of someone’s blood can occur at any time; that event is not exclusive to a tattoo parlor. According to Leanne Persicke, a communications specialist for Canadian Blood Services, “new testing and better technology have made our tests more sensitive, so we can provide better quality services to Canadians.” If this is the case, it should apply to everyone, not simply those who aren’t tattooed or pierced. If someone were infected, for example, by the HIV virus, which has a ten-year window period, a sensitive test wouldn’t catch it anyway. So, in other news, Canadian Blood Services is having a “What’s Your Type” clinic on Sept. 15 at the Owl from 11:30 to 3:30. Maybe it’s a good idea to drink before you donate blood. Maybe you’ll find out you have O negative blood, and then you can donate to the cause and help appease my guilt. Ashley Martin Editor-in-Chief |