My tips for donating platelets

One of my favorite ways to contribute to society is to donate platelets at the Farmington Platelet Center. I’ve found that cash donations lack the immediate emotional impact of watching an apheresis machine extract and re-circulate blood from your body for 100+ minutes. When unfamiliar people (unfamiliar with donating, not to me) hear about this, they often remark that it must be uncomfortable or they would prefer to donate whole blood since it is a faster process. In this post, I’d like to outline some strategies that can help you, the reader, have a more pleasant experience giving platelets, so together we can minimize the perceived downsides of donating platelets and better evangelize its benefits.

Preparation before your appointment

There are three primary ways of scheduling a blood donation, listed here in order of convenience: on the American Red Cross’s “Find a Drive” web page, in the Blood Donor mobile app, and over the phone with a call center rep. I ranked the desktop web experience first because the app’s scheduling tool never worked for me (I have a rooted Android device and cannot comment on the iOS experience) and the Red Cross seems to only call me to schedule appointments only during working hours. Before I learned to schedule appointments in advance online, I would sometimes get multiple calls a week, all of them asking to schedule a donation, all of them rattling off the same pre-donation requirements I’ve become familiar with.

Scheduling appointments a few weeks in advance is important. Weekend appointments are especially sought after, and are often full about two weeks ahead of time. I have seen appointments open up the night before as people cancel, so if you are really set on a specific day and time, you may be able to sneak in online a few hours beforehand. This is much easier for early morning appointments, since it is less likely for a backlog of waiting donors to be moved into your 1:15pm or 2:30pm slot. I haven’t ever tried a ‘walk-in’ donation, but I’d assume earlier batches are more likely to have machines available for it.

Note that Sundays are platelets-only, so if you intend on donating plasma, the best day/time is Saturday.

What to bring

Every donor’s packing list for platelets is different. If you are going for the first time, here’s a handful of items I recommend bringing:

• A phone with your completed RapidPass on the Blood Donor app. You can also complete this step online and print the result to scan at the center. Without this, you’ll need to answer as many as 80 questions in-person.
• A current driver’s license or other photo ID.
• A heavy blanket to substitute for the provided medical linens. This is important if you are tall or don’t like wasting valuable water and electricity on single-use blankets that have to be washed and re-wrapped in a separate facility with every use.
• A t-shirt to allow access to your veins by the elbow. Long sleeves won’t do it unless they have zippers for donating!
• A second t-shirt to keep your core warm. Blankets are helpful, but they may slide down away from your core while you donate.
• A bag to carry any snacks or trinkets the Red Cross may be giving out that week. Bonus for fitting the blanket and spare layers as well.
• Spare headphones for listening to podcasts, TV shows, or music. The over-ear headphones on each bed tend to suffer wear and tear. The discomfort of an ill-fitting pair of headphones gradually sliding off your earlobes is not worth the trouble, so you’ll be glad to have your own.

During and after donating

There is a critical period between having your vitals checked and starting your platelet donation. This is the ideal time to get comfortable, as the nurse hooking up your machine will be preoccupied setting up and you won’t get another chance to use your hands until you’re finished.

Eating beforehand is optional, but recommended. The American Red Cross graciously provides refreshments in the form of juice boxes, chip and pretzel bags, and a Keurig machine. You are free to eat before and after, so you might as well stock up. Be careful drinking too much water in the hours leading up to your appointment. If you are worried about dehydration, try drinking extra water the day before and having a few sips before going on the machine. Unlike with whole blood donation, the apheresis machine can circulate enough fluid into your body to keep your donation within a reasonably consistent timeframe.

Your top priority should be to ask for four to five tablets of Tums (calcium carbonate). This is because apheresis requires circulating sodium citrate into your bloodstream to prevent clotting, which can cause temporary acute hypocalcemia. If you begin to feel a tingling sensation in your extremities, ask for more Tums right away. I haven’t yet found a dignified way to eat Tums from a plastic cup held by a busy nurse at chin-height. It’s a bit like when a dentist holds out a cup of water for you to swish around while you’re half-sedated. It certainly beats passing out, however.

Next, set up your blankets and headphones, and very carefully set up the Roku on your bed’s attached televisions if so desired. Be aware that the IR blasters on these remotes tend to crosstalk and affect other televisions! When blasting IR, cover the top with your hand and hold it straight up into the sensor. I usually listen to podcasts over the public wifi, but every once in a while I will queue up a quick movie to mix things up, or watch a Youtube playlist, which doesn’t require an account.

If you are allergic to chlorhexidine or bandage adhesive, let your nurse know before you sit down. You may get an alternative disinfectant and red wraps instead of band-aids.

A twist!

Thanks for reading the inaugural post on my blog. I’m making an effort to create more and release my work in a good-enough state, rather than letting perfectionism prevent me from doing anything interesting. This effort should allow me to get something out the door quickly, and leave me some room to iterate and improve upon things as I go. The primary thing that prevented me from writing in the past was my own perception that things need to be perfect, and I can’t stand to keep thinking that way. With luck, the satisfaction of completing something and sharing it with people should keep me motivated to continue. So here you go.