I left the Blood Center about a month after I wrote my "Heroes" piece. Well, that's not exactly correct. You see, the truth is that the Blood Center left me. Oh, they gave their reasons, but those reasons were so blatantly bogus that they're not worth going into. For that matter, the CBC and its management are pretty much bogus, as well, and certainly not worth wasting any more ink on. Let's just say that I left. In retrospect, that was a good thing.
I think I said in my "Heroes" post that I wanted to be a trainer. Well, that, of course, never happened. Except it did, but in a vastly different context and venue. Y'see, I now work as an adjunct professor in the medical assisting department at the North Kansas City campus of Colorado Technical University. One of the things I teach, of course, is phlebotomy. So I got my trainer gig after all ... sort of.
Some of you may say it was predestined and I'll not argue with you. I'm not saying it was, but it might have been. It might have simply been blind luck or happenstance or the cosmological elements aligning just so, too. What I think is that it really doesn't matter one bit why - we humans have a distressing propensity to figuring out or assigning reasons for every bloody thing that happens rather than just accepting that they did, in fact, happen and we can now enjoy the benefits or work to rebuild from the catastrophe as appropriate. Nope. Why doesn't matter, not to the Grandfathers. What does matter is that I must accept this opportunity to pass my knowledge to the next generation of healers. It's my duty to be the best teacher I am able to be. That's how I can show my gratitude to them. I believe that's the only way to truly thank them.
Now, I'm not saying that "why" never matters, because it very often does. It's good to know why a particular disease, for instance, suddenly becomes resistant to previous therapies. It's also good to know why a bridge or building collapsed, so we can build future ones better. There are any number of things that deserve our figuring out the why of them; just not all things. Sometimes we use our quest for the reason as a crutch - politicians are really good at this one - so that we don't have to face the really difficult task of preventing a future occurrence. It's kind of like the ostrich syndrome. It also serves as a really useful way for those politicians to take the people's minds off the real issue - if you're all tied up trying to find out why, then you don't have time to figure out who or when or what can we do about it ... or who's responsible for it.
So, now I teach at a university. Imagine that? Last yeer ah kudn't evin SPEL kilige perfeser n now ah AR wun. Wal, jist butr mah butt n kal me biskit.
In case anyone's wondering, the troubles at CBC did absolutely nothing to alter my opinion of the donors. They're still heroes - that's immutable. What's changed is my opinion of that particular blood bank. And that's intractable.
I thought I'd promised to go into s0mething in greater detail on a later post, but I can't find that anywhere in the Lair. Maybe I said it in one of my comments to one of your blog posts. If you ken what the hel I'm talking about, please drop me an email and remind me, okay? Be kind - you know how a cranky wolf can be.
Be at peace,
The Auld Scot
