Although, in a way, it seems like posting naked pictures of myself, here’s what 515 grams of my own plasma looks like, freshly centrifuged out of my blood across the street at Canadian Blood Services:
Every time I donate it runs the same way: after about 30 minutes of paperwork (“Have you ever had sex with anyone who has received money or drugs for sex?” and so on), I get hooked up to to the Haemonetics PCS2 machine. The machine sucks out a bunch of my blood, whips it around and magically takes out the plasma, puts my blood back (that seems the most unlikely process of all), and then repeats. Here’s how Haemonetics explains it on their site.
Apparently some people can get their allotted due of 515 grams in two go-arounds; I always seem to take 3. In general I’m in and out in about 90 minutes; sometimes it takes two hours, especially if I linger for an additional chocolate chip cookie.
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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Comments
Reading that made me weak.The
Reading that made me weak.
The Haemonetics PCS2 is like a mechanical mosquito plasma cow. Plasmatic.
That is nice of you to do
That is nice of you to do that, Peter.
Does the need for plasma
Does the need for plasma outstrip the need for red cells, platelets and such? Is your plasma compatible with more blood types than your whole blood? Do you crave cookies more often than you could get them, if you donated only your whole blood? I didn’t realize there might be outreach for plasma-only donations like there is for blood. Is there?
Plasma donation is a good
Plasma donation is a good thing. (But I think I looked at this picture too soon after breakfast…it kinda made me queasy.)
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