Note: Thanks for the thousands of views for my last two blogs. I would like to announce that all these blog posts will be bound into books after every 150 pages worth of content. I would love to end this life as the published author of over 100 books. I am at 7 now, with 4 in development, so I got a lot of work to do. I think my issues with donating plasma might end up as its own book.
PS - I am going to be announcing my latest book about recent events in my hometown very soon. Be on the lookout for that. I think it might be my most meaningful.
This is Part 4 in a series of blogs about my experience donating plasma for money. I am a big believer, a big fan, and arguably from my vantage point as a social media creator, consumer advocate, and former bank relationship manager, the biggest rah-rah person that I know about this industry that doesn’t work for it.
Parts 1-3 of this saga are located below
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
To say I am mad after today, it is a massive understatement. To say I was depressed after this morning is a massive understatement. I’ll get to why later. I don’t know why I love something so much that honestly insults my intelligence with every negative experience. It’s like a bad relationship, and I’ve had those before. Lots of them.
(Singing “Why do Good Girls Love Bad Guys” by DMX — Although with me it was the other way around)
Saturday February 18, 2023 - I wake up before 6 am. My wife is up because she is going to a birthday party out of town. She’s usually in bed as I get ready to donate plasma on Saturdays, so this is a change. I am cool and calm. Excited to be alone for a few hours so I can work on my newest book and do some consumer advocacy work while watching some XFL football.
I get dressed and leave the house at 6:40am so I can make my first stop at the grocery store. My first of two times today. I always do my couponing/non-perishable purchases this trip to make extra money on the coupon apps. It’s actually pretty fruitful. About $1,200 in extra money so far in 2023.
I’m in my car, a piece of shit 2006 Jeep Liberty with no heat. On these cold weather days, I usually worry about my temperature being too low at the plasma center. I invested $55 to buy a big ass puffer jacket that makes me look like Fat Joe now that I’m bald and older.
I head towards the plasma center, having already answered my questionnaire on my phone, which I have done for the first time. They are running a promotion where if you do it this week, I get to spin a wheel for a bonus of up to $20. I am pretty pumped, because I am actually going to put that money towards a weekend trip with my wife next weekend, which won’t start until I donate plasma Saturday morning.
I walk in immediately, and get told to go to booth #4, which I referenced last week in a blog as the booth “where it is best suited to get your vitals re-taken should you have to do that”, which makes no sense other than its a bigger room as the equipment is the same.
Note: I am not going to name names of people here, because my issues are not their fault, they are just the people who happened to be there when shit happens. I have no complaints with them. They are professional and respectful to me. Again, I think they are all great!
We get to the weight, finger prick, and arm check. Now it’s time for the blood pressure check. We have had several successful bp checks in a row, except for one 15-minute wait recently. I am not worried about it, because it’s been going good. She puts the cuff on me. it gets going. I’m reading the wipes jar because I want to ensure I am not overthinking.
She goes off to the Dutch door that looks out to the donor floor and she’s talking with a coworker. No issue with me there, although it feels like on these things, I should be monitored. This is when I notice the cord that connects the cuff to the machine to be “kinked” in a weird way. Think of a hose being kinked not spewing out water with a lot of force.
Then the cuff SQUEEZES THE EVER-LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY ARM. It actually hurts. Then it starts to release pressure. THEN IT SQUEEZES THE EVER-LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY ARM again, this time tighter. I call out to her, “Hey. Excuse me.” Of course, my biggest hurdle is not to amp myself trying to call her, because guess what?
My BP will go up. IT SQUEEZES THE EVER-LIVING SHIT OUT OF MY ARM A THIRD TIME AND FOURTH TIME. It’s only supposed to do it once! I say “Hey!” again and she finishes her conversation and comes back into the booth. It is starting to release, but slowly. It feels like 3x the amount of time it takes to release and when it does, I see a BP of 150(?) over 92. I exhale and in my head Thank God I passed, because that was an adventure. I ask when I get to spin the wheel for my extra money. She says I can’t yet because I need to wait 15 minutes because my pulse was too high. It was 108!!! No way! I mean there’s no way!!!
So now all the squeezing this machine was doing when it was fucking freaking out on my arm caused a mis-read of the pulse. I was wanting an immediate retake because it obviously messed up, but she said she already put my numbers in and she can’t, and I can do it now if I wanted, but if I didn’t pass, I was deferred for the day.
WHAT THE HELL?!?!? As we mentioned in other posts, the cuff is rated to 16.9” max, and the cuff is supposed to be one inch above your elbow. Well, my arm is 19” and that point. I know, I measure, because at one point in time, I was an annoying gym bro.
I just go in and sit down in the retake area, pissed that I got burned because I was needing help from this rogue machine and she wasn’t even in the booth with me.
I’ve learned in the last year to not be mad at people for processes that are broken. I’ve fought this fight for a year already with this machine that does NOT fit my arm.
Funny enough, Thursday I was donating, which I passed with flying colors btw, and the guy in front of me was so pumped about being able to donate again. From what I gathered in his conversation he was having. He went through the new client onboarding, which is reading the material and watching videos, which takes a while, as well as doing the physical.
He goes into the booth and I hear him talking loud (you couldn’t avoid hearing him) that he came back today, because they told him his blood pressure was too high, and “I told the person the cuff was hurting me, but it’s ok. I’m back.”
The person doing the screening then tells him that he has to do all the book reading and video watching and physical taking again since he didn’t complete his first donation. He says, “Are you serious?” but not in a mean way.
She says, and I am not exaggerating here, “I am deathly serious.”
LOL
It sounded out of a horror movie. Yes, the house IS HAUNTED. I AM DEATHLY SERIOUS.
So the dude relented, and as he left the booth and got his reading materials to start his journey again to donate, which includes the videos and likely another physical, his second in two days. I didn’t pay it any mind, because he was willing to do it, likely because he needed money.
By the time I got to the bed with a needle in my arm, I heard someone in the front mention to someone here in the back that there’s not going to be a new donor after all. Did the dude not pass his blood pressure again, and he would have to come back and try a THIRD TIME? No way…
That’s how you lose a client for life. This is what I teach people who actually reach out to me for guidance on how to be a better manager (I promise you, I will write a book about this someday)
You made it impossible for him to do what he wanted to do because of a broken process. Who knows if that stunned feeling he had when he realized he had to do all the stuff again upped his BP a little bit and that POS BP machine rated him as over the acceptable level. I’ll never know.
So back to today. I wait my fifteen minutes. It was actually 18 minutes. I get called in. I am feeling as calm as I have been despite that angering moment earlier. The results? 158/111 and now the pulse is in the low 80s? WTF?!?!?!?
So apparently, I am deathly serious…I mean ill according to this, though I am as chill as can be.
How can I be normal in bp and high on pulse the first time and then high on bp and really low on pulse the second time. I call bullshit. I don’t get mad (never get mad. People are just doing their job. It’s the machine you have an issue with here.)
I tell her, “Look, It’s $100 out of my pocket. This thing is not feeling right on my arm today. Can you speak to someone to see if I can retake?”
To her credit she did not take offense. It wasn’t about her, although she could’ve helped me when I was in duress earlier. She’s an awesome employee btw, which is why I am so conflicted about writing this shit.
We get a supervisor in the room, a guy I have known for years. He tells me that I can try my other arm, but that’s the best he can do. He mentions about how he wants to make sure they don’t get in trouble. I understand that and respect that. I don’t want him to put himself out there for me. I mean, who am I?
This is where I interject, because I want him to know (and he knows) I am not looking to get anyone in trouble. I say, “Cool. Do you think I can wait another 15 minutes before I try my right arm?” He agrees. So off to sitting I go again. I didn’t look at my phone or watch TV or do anything that could even impact me a bit.
It’s funny, I have been talking to my wife about getting into meditation recently, and I wished to shit I did that before today. LOL. I am serious about that, by the way. I want to learn how to meditate.
So I just sit there, and now we have someone else come in to try the cuff out on me, this time on my right arm, which is something I almost never do. 156/111 again, this time the pulse is in the high 80s. Guy mentions “Let’s try the other arm”, which is the unofficial 5th time trying this out. 3 out of the 4 times, it is squeezing my arm in a really painful way than it has ever before, and that’s saying something since my arm is already 2 inches bigger than the cuff max.
30 seconds later, It is 151/104 pulse still in the 80s. I can’t donate.
$100 down the fucking toilet, not to mention a wheel spin where I can make up to $20 more. I can hear the Price is Right “loser” sound in my head. At this point, I can’t be mad. I am fighting a battle with a machine that simply doesn’t work on me and one reason is quite obvious, the lack of a cuff that fits.
The last screener gave me a card good for $20 on my next donation, should there even be a successful one with this hurdle I am going through. It’s still a loss of nearly $60 regardless, which eats significantly into my budget. I left on a good note. I got to talk with all the employees there, because I think they are bad ass at their job.
I got to share this blog post and the easy 800-ml.com URL to get to it.
Influencer Tip: You want to stand out in a world of a million people talking? Spend $1.08 and buy your own personalized domain name and route it to the thing you want people to see. Works like a charm all the time.
I tell the workers that the first part is how I started donating, and the second and third parts are the issues I’ve had that have made my relationship with donating so conflicted recently, all of which they know, because they have seen the issues firsthand with me. I even got to talk to one of them about the book I am writing, which not a lot of people know about yet. I hear myself talking about it, and I am so excited. It might be my best writing ever.
I get in my car. It’s 8:20am. I should be home about 8:50am even with a trip to the store. In the parking lot at Grifols, and at Albertsons, I am in my car 20-25 minutes just looking out at the lot. I look at my phone to text my wife, and I check Twitter for work-related stuff, but I am sitting there so bummed out.
I know it’s about the money. I know it. However, money rarely depresses me like this. I sit around even longer trying to figure out when I felt like this before. I thought long and hard about it and I figured it out.
It felt like I used to feel when I would lose my ass in a casino.
No. Not Vegas. Vegas is different when you lose money. I am talking about the Indian Casinos here in New Mexico. I used to live close to Isleta
(P.S. That’s what I call the casinos. I do say, “Native American” when I mean indigenous people, but being part Native myself, I prefer “Indian Casino”.)
When I was 21-22, I got into gambling hardcore, mainly because of my mom. She was a gambling addict. She would take me with her every week. My stepdad would just hand her a wad of $100s (He dealt drugs. He did time. He is now dead of a heart attack as of several years ago) and we would have a blast. The way she played was not conducive to how I liked to hold on to money. But I got the habits nonetheless.
I would go by myself on Friday nights after paydays if I was not taking out the latest college co-ed in my sights, and I would stay until 3-4am. I would win a lot, and then I would lose a lot. Most times I would have nothing. Fuck. I have no money for the week. I would walk to a soda dispenser and get a Mr. Pibb, which I would call “My $250 Mr. Pibb” and walk to my car.
I would just sit in my car thinking of what the fuck I am going to do this week for money. I would think about my $62.06 phone bill and my insurance for my car. I would sit there sadly and budget my shit at 4am in the parking lot, because I knew financially, shit was getting real.
I would go get coffee at the gas station and drive home as the sun came up, usually having to work on Saturday mornings. What a fucking existence.
I used to get paid weekly then, so the sting wasn’t as bad, but it still sucked balls. I hated it. I hadn’t felt that feeling until today. That goddamn cobra of a blood pressure cuff. I stuffed it like a turkey with my once proud guns, and it starting biting the shit out of me.
I came home and I thought long and hard about it. I have thought about this for a year.
WHY DOES IT KEEP THROWING ERRORS ON ME? WHY DOES IT SUCK SO BAD? WHY IS SOMETHING SO SIMPLE TO DO THE MOST NERVE WRACKING THING IN MY LIFE? YES… MY LIFE. NOTHING ELSE IS EVEN CLOSE TO THE ANXIETY THAT I HAVE ABOUT THIS CUFF. LIFE IS EASY COMPARED TO THOSE 30 SECONDS.
(People who are in the industry who read this and go ‘See? That’s why you are being deferred. You need to calm down’)
…No. It’s not like that.
So I am just at home visualizing my last several experiences. Obviously I have a great memory. Just look at how long this shit is already. I remember everything. I distinctly remember a lot of things every time I go in. It reminds me of the bank. I see new things every day.
The last couple times by the front desk, something caught my eye that I never even thought about. There was a rechargeable battery charger plugged into the wall underneath the TV.
It looks something like this.. It may not be the same brand, but I know rechargeable batteries well. Nearly 20 years ago, I bought rechargeable batteries for a really expensive digital camera I had that I used to review concerts with when I was an independent music journalist. (Long live my old Music website NM in Stereo)
This was me working OZZFEST as a reporter in 2004. Look at that hair!
I have just been interested in documenting life events with a digital camera since I used my first one in 1999. I have probably taken over a million photos, but I probably have taken maybe 5,000 with a digital camera with rechargeable batteries.
Why so few? Because I found out really early in buying those batteries that rechargeable batteries like that are not made for high-end electronics like cameras, boomboxes like we all had back when, and any type of equipment that may be used often, like say a blood pressure cuff at a plasma donation center.
Let me get Mr. Science on you for a second:
Those Rayovac Rechargeable AA Batteries I show up above have approximately 1350 mAh of power. For those of you who don’t know what mAh is, it is milliamperes per hour. Yeah, I didn’t know that either 20 years ago.
Match that up with a reliable Duracell Coppertop, not even the fancy ultra ones, just the regular ones…and it’s not even close.
Duracell has 2850 mAh of power. They are twice as powerful. Yes, they are disposable and not rechargeable, but it outperforms any expensive rechargeable battery system.
Years ago, when I used these batteries for my digital camera for concerts for my job, it made my camera load up slower, it took longer for the shutter to snap the photo, and it died easier. Yes, I could recharge them again in fifteen mins, but not while at a concert.
It was a giant waste of money, not a savings. Anytime I see rechargeable batteries anywhere, I think, “Someone thought they would save money, but its actually the other way around.” Depending on what you use them for, it can cause lost productivity.
PLUS… As I mentioned in Part 2 of this blog, which is slowly becoming the longest thing I have ever written which is not a book (yet), I already have a beef with the damn Qardio TD-3128 Blood Pressure Machine for being so unreliable, with dozens of 1 star reviews about its inconsistency.
I still have the user manual on my computer from last year’s issues with this machine. I reread it again after Saturday and I saw this.
NO RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES. I checked the companies other products that they offer, and guess what? They mention NO RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES as well.
So now, I got a WHOLE other issue with this BP machine. Since the machine was doing weird things and basically stating I have Grade 1 Hypertension based on the numbers that were inputted for me, you couple that with:
The fact that the machine itself states the battery life is about 200 uses. If they use rechargeable batteries with half the power, it means <100 uses is possible. That leads me to ask the Plasma Centers: Are you charging your batteries every day? If you are after only 100 uses, then it tells me the batteries are getting drained sooner than they should which means… bad batteries.
That let’s say hypothetically someone did not change the batteries after a busy Friday, the day before I was there, and I was the 5th-6th one on Saturday, could it be I got the tail end of the batteries life.. the same batteries that ARE NOT TO BE USED IN THE MACHINE, according to the company that makes the machine, would crazy, unreliable readings and things like SQUEEZING THE EVER-LIVING SHIT out of my arm several times which caused a misread on my pulse that I essentially was punished $100 for be something to expect from dying batteries that should not be in that equipment in the first place?
(BTW, Yes, other people passed before me. I heard them on the floor.) However, were they cursed with big ass tree-trunk arms like me?
I say cursed, but I spent the better part of 6 years of my life fighting hard to not be a fat guy, and working hard on my health, eating, and physique to take care of myself. I have 19 inch arms.
Why is my arm size relevant? Because the cuff that goes with the machine has the dimensions for the arm range on the user guide:
The “Wide Range” is 24-43cm. I live 40 miles from Mexico, but I am not good with the metric system. I am an American. Funny enough, Grifols is a company based in Spain so they know Centimeters well I am sure.
My arm is 19 inches wide where the cuff rests, which is 48.26cm, which is more than the cuff states it can handle (go look at the cuff)
SO you have the arm size thing, you have the low-power rechargeable battery thing, the possibility of them not being charged, also not recommended for the high-use medical product and I never had a chance.
I’m sure someone out there reads this, is laughing and goes, “Damn, James, you are crazy.”
Nope, far from it. I am a good consumer advocate and have made a career helping people figure out issues, mainly in the financial industry. I was a good manager for a decade learning how to identify and troubleshoot problems that could impact my job performance. I have lived 40 years of my life is by this rule of thumb, when you are in the wrong, you concede that you were wrong, but when you have a point to make, you grind that point to a nub.
A reminder that the plasma donation industry is goal-oriented with goals/quotas that people have to hit in order to get bonuses, good job reviews, and hell, even keep your job. As a person who lived by a goal every day, I know how that feels. That stress… and that’s why I am understanding here.
It’s no different that the industry I mastered for a decade, managing a branch of a $250 Billion bank that everyone hated.
They hated my company, but they loved me, because I worked hard for people, and made sure that I knew where my bread is buttered. Those people were my Parkay. (I know it’s not butter. I grew up in the 1980s. I remember the commercials)
I made my case. I am out $100+something more if I spun the wheel and landed on something yesterday.
I made a decision to not buy an appliance I really wanted to buy yesterday. I can afford it, but the $100 loss is very hurtful to my budget. Hell, I should just have the company who makes what I want to sponsor my consumer advocacy podcast, and they will give me a free one. :)
I write these things, because you, my followers of my social media projects ask me too. I have 3 books I am currently writing and a full-time “job” helping others with consumer issues. I am tired, but I LOVE WRITING. This whole thing took.. an hour and a half tops. It was nothing.
After Saturday, I am going to make sure the plasma industry hears me. Yes, I made today’s post about me because of what happened Saturday, but I only do this because I have seen a lot of people get deferred because of something they have no control over. If you have twig arms, then maybe you get lucky, but I am being reversed body shamed for something that is usually a sign of good health. There’s nothing in the rulebook about big arms.
I mentioned I have probably “Referred” hundreds of people over nearly two decades. I have probably indirectly contributed millions to the companies that run that place just because I believe in the process so much.
The resolution to this would be something that benefits others and benefits me as well. I am too humble to make it only about me. (The 4000 words today probably says otherwise)
In closing, I want to share with you a little something weird.
I am a huge pro wrestling fan. Have been since I was 5. That’s likely why I am obsessed with pumping up my arms.
Anyway, my younger brother (who I also referred to donate not too long ago, plus his brother-in-law does it now currently at Grifols too) and niece and I went to AEW Wrestling in El Paso a couple weeks ago. It was a TV taping.
I have probably been to 100 of those things over the years, including 2021 Summerslam and 2019 Royal Rumble. I just enjoy it, and likely will until the day I die.
I love wrestling for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is the storytelling.
They can tell a story through their movements, actions, and body language without ever speaking a word. That’s not me.
Then you have those who can speak with the best of them, and that’s what gets them ahead in the wrestling world. Maybe they can’t do the other stuff well, but they have one gift from God. That’s me.
I have been lucky enough to tell a million stories to a million people over the years, and articulate my feelings with the precision of a man on a microphone in a wrestling ring. In a world where I try REALLY hard to not complain for the smallest thing, I am here complaining about something that means the absolute world to me. My feelings, my words, will make you chant “This is Awesome” like they do at the wrestling events. This is my forte. Articulating you to death.
It’s not about the money, although it sucks that I lost some. It’s about efficiency and fairly being assessed. I feel that I have not been. If I have been crammed into that bp machine 100 times, than I will say all 100 times, even the ones I “passed” on are incorrect, through no fault of my own or the phlebotomists. It is a false reading based on factors that either can’t be fixed or are ignored. Simple as that.
As of right now, in my opinion:
1. If you have arms >16.9”, don’t donate at any plasma center that has the QARDIO TD-3128 machine with the normal cuff. You will not like the result. I don’t give recommendations/warnings usually, but this might be the first ever time.
I want to thank the dozens of people who reached out to me about this process across the country since I posted the first 3 parts 2 weeks ago. It tells me you all are hearing me. Let’s see if they do!
James