When I was a graduate student in Salt Lake City I started donating blood platelets. At that time my primary motivation was financial. While it was NOT legal to pay for blood or blood products, it was permissible to pay donors for their time. More than 30 years later I continue to donate platelets though there is no longer any remuneration for one's time; my primary motivation is to help cancer patients.
Unlike donating whole blood, an apheresis donation involves both arms and takes about 90 minutes. (A one-arm process is available, but takes even longer.) The following images give some idea of the process, the machine used, and how I am situated when I donate ... except I have a portable DVD player on my lap watching a video.
The process of donating platelets is called apheresis. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of apheresis is "withdrawal of blood from a donor's body, removal of one or more blood components (as plasma, platelets, or white blood cells), and transfusion of the remaining blood back into the donor —called also pheresis. The origin of the word is from -apheresis (as in plasmapheresis) with the first known use in 1977.
One of the biggest problems with an apheresis donation is predictable -- for an hour and a half you cannot scratch where it itches. And you don't realize just how much your nose and face and head and neck itch until you can't scratch.
The other issue is more irksome than a problem. Usually you don't have time to finish watching a movie before the procedure is over. So unless you watch a movie you've seen previously or run home and watch the rest of the movie, you don't see the ending. But I'm pretty sure the good guys win. I hope the platelet recipients also win.
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