The worst part is when the technician asks me to clench my fist so she can figure out which vein will be the best one to take the needle. I watch the veins pop on the inside of my elbow while she tap-taps, tap-taps, then takes a black Sharpie and puts two dots on the vein to mark where she wants to tap my blood.

I always get a shade disoriented at this point, as if I’m not entirely there, as if part of me has slipped outside my body and is watching it all. I’m always tempted to say, “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll give blood some other time.” Instead, the technician does the speaking:

“Come over here, please.

“Lie down, please. Stretch your arm out here, please.

“I’m going to put the cuff on,” and she does, wrapping a pressurizing cuff around my upper arm. Then comes the iodine swabbing, painting a fist-sized area of my skin a tired orange.

The technician, dressed in her blue lab coat with the American Red Cross logo, hands me a soft red rubber ball to clench, then unwraps the needle. I never look at the needle.



“Squeeze hard, please,” she says. I squeeze the ball. The veins in my arm bulge again.

The people who are waiting their turn to donate shift their gazes our way. This is when The Code of Being A Man requires me to look as nonchalant as possible and not betray any sensation of leeriness or, god forbid, pain when the technician moves in for the needle stick. I’ve got the nonchalance down, as well as the anti-flinching behavior, but if I were really a tough guy, I’d watch as the technician pierced my skin and eased the needle into the vein. I’m not really a tough guy.

The anticipation is always worse than The Moment. Then, it’s just a matter of waiting for the machine to do its work.

I make what the Red Cross workers call “double red” donations. This involves hooking me up to a machine that draws the blood, separates the red blood cells from the plasma, and then returns the plasma to my system through the same tubes and needles that the blood is extracted from. It’s one thing to watch blood being siphoned away in a rivulet that’s so red it’s almost purple; it’s another thing entirely to watch the flow reverse and see the blood that’s left in the tubes get injected back into you, along with the plasma and some saline to keep the whole plumbing system from clogging.

The funny thing is, the needle they use for double-reds is smaller than the needle used for typical donations, so the stick is never as bad as expected. Because this method collects twice the number of red blood cells than a routine donation does, I'm only eligible to donate blood three times a year — and as someone with a needle phobia, that’s enough.

The other day, the technician peeled back the gauze pad to make sure the saline and plasma were indeed going back into the vein; sometimes, the needle can slip from the vein, or the vein wall can break, resulting in the fluid being returned under the skin, which leads to pain and a forearm like Popeye’s. When she moved the gauze, I looked and saw the needle poking out of my arm.

That’s something I don’t need to see again. But I maintained my nonchalance – I think.