Every day is different in so many ways and so I’ve decided to do a ‘Day in the Life of…’ and this is the first one… Friday, 26th February.
I was a driver today. It was an Accrington session that originally was to be at Hyndburn, then moved to the lovely Crow Wood Hotel and then moved to Burnley Football Club. It’s a good job our donors are committed with all the to-ing and fro-ing we put them through. So, we were off to Jordan North’s ‘happy place’, Turf Moor.
With my mask on and my temperature taken I headed to the garage to do my driver’s checks. Now I can switch a windscreen wiper on to make sure it works, I can beep the horn and I can do pretty much everything on the sheet, but I’m used to my car’s computer telling me if there is a problem. It flashes up with something and I get someone to sort it. I know, I know…I’m letting all women down here and I hold up my hands, but it’s not going to change, I’m afraid. So, I opened the front up and…..yes, there was an engine there so all was good!
With ticks all round it was time to load the blood bags and the stock for the day. With Alice, the mini bus driver and Stephen, the driver’s buddy, we were all sorted and ready to hit the road for 10:50.
It took about an hour to drive to Burnley and it was a good job I was on my own in the lorry as the radio was on full blast whilst I squawked along. Our little convoy arrived and the rest of the team were already there eagerly waiting to unload.
It is a bit of a pain to have to unload and then take cages up in a lift, especially when only one cage will go in at a time and the lift creaks up slowly. Eventually everything was up in the room and then we were like a well oiled machine setting up the session. Everyone has an appointed job and within half an hour we have a whole session up and ready to go…a welcome desk and refreshment area, a computer, four screening booths, donation chairs, a front pod where all the blood packs are set up and a reconciliation area where the packs are sealed and bagged.
With a view of the pitch it’s a nice room. There are always people working on the grass and today was no exception. Even after all the rain we’ve had recently they were sprinkling the pitch. The huge sun lamps were on and moved around…so the grass could get an even tan I presume! It did look good and it’s a shame that the fans can’t get in to see it. We held a session there a week ago and one donor looked round at the staff and donors and said, “Well, this is the biggest crowd Burnley has had for the past year!”
One of the first donors through the door was Janet. With her (almost) claret coloured tights and matching handbag I thought she was worthy of a photo as I do like a donor who dresses to fit the day or the place or the situation. Well it turned out that it was Janet’s fiftieth donation, a great achievement, and so it definitely needed photographing…
It wasn’t only Janet who had reached a milestone donation as Stephen was on the chair next to her giving his fiftieth ‘pint’ also. As a big Burnley fan he said, “What better place to give it!”
Stephen wasn’t wearing his claret tights today, but he filled a bag with the red stuff!
It was a reduced session today and it gave us time to have a chat with people…and for me to take a few photos.
We always have music on so that we can retain confidentiality in the screening booths and I had one of my playlists on. Stephen commented at the end of the day saying how he had enjoyed the songs. With his tattoos one could easily assume he wouldn’t have appreciated the ‘classics’ such as Aqua’s I’m a Barbie Girl, but you’d be very wrong. (He may never speak to me again for pointing this out ha ha ha). We did listen to Tainted Love twice as I had played Soft Cell’s version and Mike then played the original by Gloria Jones and we agreed that the original is definitely the best version. It’s always good to have a bit of banter and sing a long during the day.
Martina was having a good chat with one of her donors. She has Czech origins and he was saying that he had visited Prague and liked the Czech beer. They talked beer and after he had donated he went down to his car where he had some Czech beer in the boot and brought a bottle back in for her…how nice is that!
It was definitely Fat Friday today! Lou brought in donuts and Mike brought in cream cakes. It would have been rude not to partake…it will take a lot of walking this weekend to work off all the calories…
It wasn’t all singing, chatting and eating we did put a few needles in too…
We stuck needles in, we took needles out, we pricked fingers and stuck plasters on, we filled test tubes, we packed blood bags…we had a ‘bloody’ good day.
If you ever watch us set up a session you’d be amazed how quickly we can transform an empty room, but….if you ever watch us pack up a session, especially on a Friday evening, you would be open mouthed at how speedily we can get everything back on the lorry.
It was a great day. A good team. Lovely donors. Lots of laughs. Too much cake eaten. As colleagues set off for home Alice, Stephen and I headed back to base to get the blood to the labs so that the night staff could start work on it straight away.
The labs are ‘clean areas’ and so we wheeled the cages of blood to the yellow line on the floor and rang the bell. Francis came out…he stayed on his side of the line and we stayed on ours. The blood passed between us. “Strike a pose for me,” I said…
“You’ve taken my picture before…” he said. “Yes,” I replied, “It was with a towel.” Both Alice and Stephen raised an eyebrow or two. “Noooo, it’s not what you are thinking,” we both said. It was for Towel Day held on 25th May, from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when I took a photo of 42 people each holding/wearing/lying on a towel. All perfectly decent and above board…lol. (I must remember to do it again this year!)
And so that was my day. Now I need a drink before bed. It can only be…a glass of claret!
need2bleed 