Liquid Gold: while jobs disappear and budgets tighten, students sell plasma to earn extra cash
After piteously losing both of my jobs in one day, I was turned off by the idea of putting in the time applying to conventional occupations around town. As they say, looking for work is a full time job in itself. As a typical “poor college kid,” with no aspiration to work minimum wage, I was persuaded into selling my bodily fluids at BioLife.
I had heard about “donating” plasma at the beginning of my freshman year here at Ohio University, but was constantly dissuaded by negative feedback from my family, which includes a few nurses and other health care professionals. My donor friends told me that I could make over $200 a month for only two hours a week and that it was the easiest thing they had ever done for money. Donors can also donate up to two times a week — that’s eight times a month.
It seemed way too good to be true, so I assumed that there had to be something shady about it. But college is for experimenting, right? So, against my parents’ wishes and my own intuition, I began saving lives by donating my plasma.
The BioLife plasma donating center was nothing like I had imagined. It wasn’t a trashy dump and the employees weren’t some back alley medics. Dozens of certified phlebotomists (plasma-drawing nurses) are there to serve your every need. BioLife is a profesional institution. The Athens center is just one of dozens around the country, many of which are commonly located near college campuses in order to provide easy money for healthy, but poor college kids.
Despite a few technical difficulties, my experience donating plasma has been successful, but not entirely stress free. Being a mere 5’3, 120 something pounds, I am not the conventional plasma giver. Most donors I met were hulking men, likely weighing in at around 200 lbs. or more. Bigger males are better equipped with large, juicy veins to stick with the needle.
The first time donating is experimental for both the phlebotomist and the donor. The phlebotomist adjusts the system to the donor’s body mass and weight, which is an exercise in pain. This happens more often with smaller people because of the likelihood of them having smaller, less eager veins. So, yes, sometimes it can hurt.
What is most important, though — besides the money, of course — is that donating plasma saves lives. While speaking to a nurse at BioLife, I got the impression that even though some donors just want to get paid, what they sometimes forget are the emotional and physical benefits for the patients who receive the plasma. Plasma is added to products such as intravenous immune globulin, Albumin, and Fraction IV paste, which assist in strengthening the immune system. The medicines made with these plasma-based products are often given to sick children and people with Primary Immunodeficiency Disease, Common Variable Immune Deficiency or Hemophilia. So, while the big bucks are reward enough for us poor, struggling college folk, a quick donation can save someone’s life. Nothing like guilt-free, work-free moneymaking.