Lana

LANA

The US Army — accidentally provided a major part of the ‘home-dialysis’ solution. Blood transfusion kits are not available at the local CVS, so even after getting the tubes, needles, pump, and bandages that seem to be required to make this work, you need someone that knows how a non-hospital transfusion setup would function. And would trust it enough to try it out. On themselves.

That person was Lana: a combat medic for the US Army discharged about a decade ago. And now homeless. Our country has a serious problem with taking care of people we put in harm's way after we are ‘done’ with their service.

Lana would sporadically visit my clinic instead of the VA (or nothing at all I assume), and I started driving her home shortly after she showed up. She happened to arrive very late, so I was always done for the day at about the same time as she was. During the drives I started bringing up her in-field medical activities. Recounting this was traumatic for her, but I believe it was also cathartic, and she did it because she wanted to and not because I influenced her.

Over the next couple weeks, I learned she had done many field blood transfusions and although not thrilled by them, was certainly comfortable with them. Venipuncture (putting a needle into a vein) and cannulation (creating a ‘canal’ for the blood to flow through) are simply skills with a high-degree of risk associated with them. Lana was good at them from a war-time of experience.

In theory I should have been good also, but that was both not true and irrelevant. Not true because I never had to do it myself and had not picked up the skill. And irrelevant because Lana had to trust the process, and she was always going to trust herself as a skilled medic than almost anyone else.

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We used ‘El Toro’ — as the first medical bay for our first transfusion attempt. It may seem strange to do a transfusion in a car, but this was a very large and comfortable vehicle. It also had extensive power supplies due to several Goal Zero lithium batteries within its trunk. Further, I had made custom sanitary flooring and seat covers. Finally, we parked the vehicle in the Stanford parking garage in case anything went terribly wrong. Calling 911 might cause a gurney to wheel directly to our vehicle.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark L. Fussell lives (or lived) with his wife Rebecca, and two daughters Maya and Katrina, in Palo Alto, California. He makes a living through consulting for companies including Apple, Intel, Sony, and HP. He makes a life through the loving relationships he has with family, friends, and even mere acquaintances. He was a little strange before this adventure, and now he is even more so.