keeping all my blood to myself.

There are certain things about myself that I do not enjoy. First, I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. Second, sometimes I feel that I am struggling to be the best person I could be -- like I've just been trying and trying to be better, to be a role model, to be an upstanding citizen, and I'm just coming up ordinary and ineffectual. Third, I may or may not have a chronic inflammatory disease in my sacro-iliac joints called ankylosing spondilitis. I am in pain every day. I have been trying for months to get a referral to a specialist, but the doctor's office keeps forgetting to fax my request, or accidentally cancelling my request, or some other equally annoying thing, so I can't even find out for sure (beyond my non-specialist family doctor's amateur diagnosis) whether I actually have this disease.

Today, in an attempt to be a better person, or an upstanding citizen, or whatever, I went to donate blood. When asked if I'd taken any aspirin, I answered, "yes." Yesterday I took a muscle relaxant because I went shopping with my sister and my back was aching afterward. When asked why I took the muscle relaxant, I answered, "Because I might have a joint inflammation called ankylosing spondilitis." The nurse's face got all serious, and when she looked it up in her huge Book of Reasons Not to Let People Donate Blood, she nodded.

"Because ankylosing spondilitis is an autoimmune reaction, we aren't certain that it's contagious and therefore you are permanently deferred from donating."

Watch out, I might sneeze on you and your joints will become inflamed!

I felt really disappointed. It makes me sad to think that I can never help save lives the way I could have if I were allowed to donate. And what's even more ridiculous is the fact that I've donated before!

Why would God make me O-negative and simulatenously give me a disease that ensures I can never give blood? What's the point of being a "universal donor" if I can't donate to anyone? -- ever. Isn't it bad enough that I have to be in pain every day of my life, but now I can't even help others with their pain? The nurse told me that I was deferred indefinitely, or for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Given that I'll die roughly 940 years before that time, I think it's safe to say that I won't be permitted to donate, and therefore infect society with my arthritic blood again in my lifetime.

The nurse said it's too bad that it's been more than two months since I last donated, because it's too late for them to recall my blood. She said the people who received my blood (and lived! although, that's my opinion on the matter) would likely be monitered to see if they show any signs of having ankylosing spondilitis. She also told me that my spine was probably curving already, and that my joints were probably stiffening up to the point of disuse. "Aren't they?" She asked. "No. Actually, it's not in my spine, and there's no curvature. It's not scoliosis." I wanted to add that obviously my joints hadn't seized up, as she witnessed me walk right in there. Clearly they're still operational. They're just chronically inflamed and sore all the time. No big deal, right?

So as I drove home, I became increasingly annoyed that I haven't seen a specialist yet, even though my doctor supposedly referred me at the beginning of summer. I had called in October to ask when I could expect an appointment, and the receptionist told me that I had been referred, but that the request for appointment hadn't gone through. She told me she would send it again. I never heard anything about it.

While waiting for the light to turn green, I phoned the doctor's office to ask again about my appointment. The receptionist told me that on October 29th, the referral had been cancelled, and it had been declared that I didn't need to see a specialist.

"Why would Dr. Stansbury do that?" I asked.

"Well, she didn't. You called in and requested that it be cancelled."

WHAT?!?!?!

First of all, I so did nothing of the sort. I called to affirm an appointment. Second of all, don't blame me for your stupid mistake. You don't have to suffer for it. I do. After bitching and complaining, she agreed to send a note to Dr. Stansbury that would ask her to refer me again.

"When can I call and confirm that this has been done?" I asked.

"You don't need to call, I'll send it today."

"When can I call and confirm?"

"Umm... maybe the end of next week?"

I'm going to call on Friday. This is stupid. I'm sitting here waiting for my bones to potentially fuse together. I am deferred from donating my gloriously universal blood for the next 999 years. I am becoming less of an upstanding citizen the more I feel sorry for myself. The more I feel like I'm completely hopeless, the less better person I become.

I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. I am taking my inability to donate blood personally, which is completely ridiculous, and I am aware of that. Sometimes I feel like I am struggling to be a better person and failing. I have the ability to save lives with my particular blood type, but I can't. I may or may not have ankylosing spondilitis, but I guess I'll never know for sure, and I'll never be able to treat it, because someone at my doctor's office made repeated mistakes, pushing a potential consultation with a rhumetologist further and further away.

What a fantastically useless day.