Today marked my third time donating plasma this year, and Monday will be my last time in before 2013 officially arrives.
In all honesty though, this isn't donation, even though the company calls it that. The reality is I'm receiving monetary compensation for what they are taking. I'm selling the plasma.
Is this a good thing? Sure, it can be received that way. What they are taking is, as far as I've been told, being put into service for creating various medications that treat everything from high blood pressure to burn victims. That is certainly something not to feel ill about.
But when you bring the blunt, bare bones truth out, I'm taking part of myself and trading it in for money, and I'm doing it to supplement a meager to non-existent income. Without going on the streets, this is by all means the bottom of the barrel in terms of income.
I'd like to think of it in more optimistic terms, but the point is driven in every single time I go in to donate. The people in the chairs aren't there for the good of their donation, they are there for the money. They are there to cover the rent, buy another week's worth of groceries, and maybe pay off their credit cards. I may have cleaner clothes and no scarring on my veins (I'm presuming from a past life as I would like to believe that everyone there was honest on their questionnaire), but if I'm sitting in that chair, watching whatever movie is running on their TV screens, I can't be that different. Can I?
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