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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Blood Blogging

Your Federal Taxes at Work


So I'm bragging to Neelam (she made me dinner the other night, you recall, while we watched the Super Bowl at her house) about my hemoglobin number, which the ladies at the National Institutes of Health blood bank -- where I give blood -- often tell me is impressively high... And instead of looking impressed, Neelam looks worried.

"Ask your doctor," she says - and I suddenly remember that not only is Neelam a doctor, she specializes in diseases of the blood - "to test you for hemochromatosis."

"Isn't a good thing to have a high number? You're not anemic, etc.?"

"Yes, but you don't want the number too high. If it's too high, you might have... I'll write down the name for you."

"That's okay. I'll remember..."

"But listen," she said, and started to laugh: "If you do have hemochromatosis, the cure is giving blood every couple of months, and you've been doing that for ten years! You've been managing your own disorder without knowing it!"




My hemoglobin number today was middling, so I don't think I've got hemochromatosis. Whatever the word is for freezing of the blood would be more like it, with insanely cold weather lacing into me as I climbed the hill from the NIH security trailer to the Clinical Center. White smoke poured out of postmodern buildings along the way, giving them a preindustrial look.

"Whoa. Your pulse is way too high," said the nurse who makes you pass all these tests before you can donate. "You wanna sit for awhile and maybe it'll come down? ...Your blood pressure's too high too. Did you have a lot of coffee this morning?"

"Tea and pizza. I think the walk here did it."

I leafed through an Air and Space Museum book of photos of vintage cockpits, which put me right to sleep. In minutes, my numbers were in the normal range and I was able to give.



I have attractive blood: O positive and CMV negative. A combination much sought after by blood banks the world over.

But I like NIH, for reasons I've mentioned before on this blog: My father spent his career studying cancer at NIH. And when you give at NIH, you know your blood goes, pretty much right away, to sick people a couple of floors up. The part that doesn't go upstairs is used in the same building, for experiments.



The blood bank usually gives me a t-shirt or a pen or a bracelet when I'm done, but today I was handed an ice scraper.