This week I donated blood at INOVA, for the 130th time lifetime but it was more difficult than normal. When I arrived for my appointment I was asked to sign in and then directed to a bar code placard on the counter and told to use my phone to download the questionnaire and fill it out.
After I stood stupidly before the cardboard cutout design for a minute waving my phone around in front of it, a technician came over and told me to take a picture of it. I snapped a picture of it. Shaking her head she took my phone, did something with it and handed it back to me with a questionnaire pulled up on it.
I laboriously answered the 80 questions on my tiny screen with my fat fingers, taking much more time than using the old pen and paper method. When I finished I pressed Continue and the screen asked if I wanted to Print It. Since I don't have a printer currently and I already know the answers, I pressed the Done button. That caused the entire questionnaire to vanish and I couldn't get it back.
I was called into the exam room and the tech tapped around on her computer for while, obviously searching. She asked, Where is your completed survey? I shrugged and showed her the picture on my phone, below. Shaking her head, she started asking the questions one-by-one and entering them, saying that it was a new system and confusing for some in order to mollify my increasing mortification. She didn't look anything like my 3d grade teacher trying to teach me cursive writing, maybe it was the facemark that ruined this mental image for me.
When we got to the exciting section of the survey, Have I paid for sex lately, slept with a man ever or gotten a tattoo recently, she looked tentatively at the open door and asked if I wanted her to close it before I answered further.
When we got to the exciting section of the survey, Have I paid for sex lately, slept with a man ever or gotten a tattoo recently, she looked tentatively at the open door and asked if I wanted her to close it before I answered further.
I assured her that my life was so humdrum that all the answers to the entire survey were typically normal except that I had been abroad in the last three years (England, Fance and Eire for 10 days in 2019) and I had received a vaccination in the last 8 weeks (dose #1 of Moderna a fortnight ago). So I passed and a finger pricking and an arm piercing later, I departed leaving a bag of crimson gold behind.
O+ blood, very desirable since it is the universal donor type. I get blood donation solicitation calls weekly from the Red Cross and monthly from the Cincinnati Chapter of Blood Support, the latter because I donated blood in the Cincinnati airport once during a layover over a decade ago. No matter how many times I assure these phone volunteers that I will not come to Cincinnati to donate there again since I live a thousand miles away, I can't get off their Call list.
Now to learn how to download a survey (or a menu) on my phone when presented with bar code and how to save it when necessary.
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