THE JOLT
A strange bloody story. 
When giving blood the last little chore is to fill 6 test tubes with labelled blood for all the tests they do on my blood before it joins the general blood bank. I am not heavy enough to donate platelets so all they take from me is a pint of blood. The body is a sealed unit with a pump so once punctured healthy blood will flow as we all know. My veins are easy to find, my blood flows hot and thick – no problem.
My body released its pint easily but when it got to filling the test tubes a funny thing happened. The test tubes themselves are held in a vacuum so they will fill. The woman who attended to me would take one tube out and attach the next quite quickly, clicking it into the little dock that was attached to the needle in my arm. There is no electricity needed. The blood is simply syphoned out by the vacuum. The body is supplied with its own heart-pump and mine is good and strong.
Now you will remember that sometimes I get into cars and they run out of battery. I short out machines and get electric shocks from metal, people sometimes touch me and get a shock. Supermarkets are nightmares. Ovens stop, dishwashers perish. John runs the metal coffee machine.
Here is a little background. All up the body holds about 100 milli watts of energy/electricity. Though to call this electricity is (I think) a little misleading – I am sure there is another word for it. The electrical waves are conducted through the potassium and sodium in the blood. These create pathways – little roads of information from the body to the control tower in the brain.
Here is the process of electricity moving through the body.
“When your body needs to send a message from one point to another, it opens the gate. When the membrane gate opens, sodium and potassium ions move freely into and out of the cell.
Negatively charged potassium ions leave the cell, attracted to the positivity outside the membrane, and positively charged sodium ions enter it, moving toward the negative charge. The result is a switch in the concentrations of the two types of ions — and rapid switch in charge.
…this flip between positive and negative generates an electrical impulse. This impulse triggers the gate on the next cell to open, creating another charge, and so on. In this way, an electrical impulse moves from a nerve in your stubbed toe to the part of your brain that senses pain.”
Believe me I have studied this. If I had a port I could charge my phone but it would probably get fried knowing my electrical charge.
Back to the Red Cross blood drive in the Lutheran Church the other day.
OK. Every time she attached the new test tube into the shunt which was attached to the needle in my body, my blood (this is hard to describe) gave a little jolt. Like a small – very small – hit from an electric fence. My arm did not move. This was not a reflex reaction to the change over or anything. This was all inside my arm and chest. It felt like a small electric crunch of the blood. And even stranger: the woman who held the shunt, her hand resting on my arm to prop the tubes going in and out ALSO felt this shock. This physical jump within the vein. And it unnerved her. This well trained red cross technician had been taking blood for years and never encountered such a phenomenon before.
Here is an interesting thing. The bigger the test tube the bigger the shock. I think that my system was reacting to the vacuum. I am of course researching an explanation. Though shock is the wrong word really as the only metal was the needle and the shunt was plastic. That’s just how it felt. What it was I do not know. But it happened SIX times with each change over of the glass tubes.
I told her to fill them all – I was fine after all – and we went through each test tube because I did not want my blood wasted. But we were quite happy to be finished.
And my memory still cringes with that feeling.
My other pump. The vacuum milking pump marooned in the snow waiting to be carried up the steps and into the house. We cannot leave it in the barn in this weather as it is too cold. And Lady Astor is still giving too much healthy creamy milk to be dried up. This is one machine I do not want to short out so I never touch the switch on the machine, I turn it on and off at the wall.
And I have spare fuses at hand.
We have a lot of snow on the ground now. There was another dusting last night. Maybe a little more today.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
WEATHER:
Wednesday 02/07 40% / < 1 in
Mostly cloudy with snow showers around this morning. High 16F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40%.
Wednesday Night 02/07 20% / 0 in
Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 1F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Sun
6:57 am 5:17 pm
Moon
Waning Gibbous, 51% visible 12:14 am 11:10 am
56 Comments on “THE JOLT”
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thekitchensgarden 
I wonder if the cannula in your arm was inserted a bit close to a nerve. Your arm was mostly still while your pint was being drawn, but every time the nurse attached a fresh test tube for the sampling, the needle was jiggled a small fraction and the nerve was disturbed. It doesn’t always feel like pain, sometimes it’s just a small shock sensation. Of course, this doesn’t explain your other talents (“The Force is strong in this one, Obi-Wan”)… I used to be able to turn off a streetlight near my home in London, just by walking past it. Fun, but spooky. Your power-surges must be more annoying than anything else.
Nice post! I am a nurse and the explanation of katechiconi is quite common. The other phenomena may be less common.
I hope you will get the right answer 😉
Thank you Jose. i was hoping one of the medical profession would join in – that does sound like what this was – more a discomfortng thump than a pain.. thank goodness – c
Yes – that could be so – that would make sense. My talents are nothing compared to yours – being able to turn off a single street lamp by walking under it! mercy! c
Only the one lamp in the one place… It spooked me severely at first, but then I got used to it.
Brrr. I can feel your snowstorm via your photos. Your jolt is fascinating to read about-yikes.
I love putting ordinary experiences out there for a chat over coffee – the body is magical. c
Rather shocking! Actually it is electricity and I can see how you would have this happen. Do you know that even your heart is electrically run? There is a very small area called the SA Node that triggers the electrical stimulus to initiate heart beat. The SA node is the heart’s natural pacemaker. The SA node consists of a cluster of cells that are situated in the upper part of the wall of the right atrium (the right upper chamber of the heart). The electrical impulses are generated there. The SA node is also called the sinus node. Definition of SA node – MedicineNet
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5402
Yes. I know. Dear. But Naughty girl cutting and pasting your reply!
Only part of it lol
Thank goodness- I love the discussion though. Thank you!
Funny thing is last evening I was with a group and we did a quiz on heart. As a nurse I knew the electrical part but was sincerely surprised that most of the room were in awe at thought.
Yes – i think this is why we like to walk barefoot and bury our feet in the sand – do you think this might bring relief to our electrical persons. ? c
I do!
Yes indeed, waking barefoot on the Earth: literally “grounding” ones’ self (and the exact opposite of walking on carpet!)
Very odd, indeed!! You are, I think, a “mega”…that’s what we would call you in Italy. A very nice sort of witch/magical person. Speaking of magical, these photos!!! What amazing colors. Cold and oddly warm at the same time. The light from your veins…
The toddlers in my family call me Magna! c
Should have read “maga.” Damn spellchecker.
Beautifully said, Daily! 😀
Kathryn
Actually, spellcheck changed the word. It should be “maga.”
Interesting effect you felt. I give platelets regularly. I’ve never felt what you describe. I have had some flutter feeling at the site of the needle. I suspect you are right about the effect of the vacuum.
btw – thank you for being a donor.
and thank you TOO, Jim!!
Your snow tree looks beautiful and those cold snow pigs!
I can imagine what the electric shock might feel like. I don’t have your electrical charge phenomenon, but I did a fashion shoot in a Knightsbridge hotel back in the 80s and had a large flash head on a stand with wheels. The carpet in the hotel must have been a type of nylon which produced a lot of static, because, every time my nose touched the back of the camera (to look through the lens) I got a small shock. 8 outfits and room changes (16 rolls of film) proved to be quite unnerving.
Oh – now that really would have been un-nerving. Getting a shock from your OWN CAMERA! That’s just mean!
Fascinating! I wonder if your energy field can be seen by others? Not always, but sometimes I see an aura or maybe a sparkly (not sure how to describe it) field around people and animals.It’s difficult to describe how such a visual affects me. Not sure there are words in our language to express… kind of the same thing I suppose you feel with your electrical output.
Ha ha – yes – I will start to worry when I glow sparkly in the dark! c
Should Richard and I be afraid to visit you lest you get supercharged and implode or black out the central states??
Love,
K. Sparks
Cool! I see edges (lighter, darker, different colored) around things but in my version I think it’s only that I’m aware of the phenomenon of the brain attempting to visually sort and separate one thing from another to make sense of them. I would think it was pretty interesting and transforming to see more than that!
xo,
K
😊 nice to know I’m not alone….computers will suddenly lock up when I’m near (in a bank is common), cash registers cease to function, and I don’t dare be outside in a lightning storm after a couple of particularly close calls. I try not to touch people. One of the guys tool boxes at work – if I forget and touch it – I get absolutely hammered with a jolt. The most freakish (my hubby thinks this is funny) the hydro line across the road in front of our house will start to ‘bounce’, 6-8 inches up and down. It’s attached to miles of hydro along the road – that does not bounce (he has driven down the road to look more than once), and one place I worked years ago – if I walked out to the back parking lot – that section of hydro line would start to bounce too. The other mechanics used to run down the alley to see if anybody else’s lines were bouncing. I’ve ruined so many coffee machines I now use a percolator on my wood cook stove.
I can never decide if I’m ‘collecting’ electricity, or discharging it.
Oh Lordy. You are a phenomenon. I think our friendship will always be a long distance one – imagine you and I in the same ROOM!!! Horrors. c
That’s amazing… as is Cecilia’s experiences!!!
Does wearing rubber boots or rubber gloves when handling equipment make any difference?
I wear rubber boots all day at work – maybe that is why the farm equipment seems to last longer than the kitchen gadgets!
How about that…. You might have to start wearing what we used to call ‘rubber’s around the house!!
I too carry strange charges! For me it affects watches and clocks… The watch thing I can totally understand. It is in contact with my skin. But clocks …? I was a teacher and we would have these big plastic clocks hanging on our classroom walls. They were battery powered. Each time we’d hit a new time season (spring forward, fall back) I would climb up, take the clock down and change the time. Quickly … Because IF I held it too long it would start to run BACKWARDS. It would totally wow the kids or anyone else around … So I don’t wear watches – just hang a carabiner watch from my tool belt when I’m doing chores.
Oh my Gods! Backwards! That is outrageous. What a thing! I have a wind up watch though now that I think about it – my Fitbit was fine! And my phone does ok. But I guess we can just recharge them?
What you’re describing sounds like AC/alternating current and battery-powered things like automobiles, the Fitbit, & iPhone also run on AC, so no worries: )
Oops, always did get them mixed up… Meant batteries produce DC/direct current. AC is what you have in hydro lines and houses.
Fascinating !!!
It is so wonderful to hear this happens with other people, too. My mom was constantly blaming me for breaking watches – until a very kind old country clock repair man looked at me and said in his experience, some people had too much electricity in their bodies to successfully wear a watch – that I should give up and carry a pocket watch. My mom huffed, but dad gave me a pocket watch.
Have you ever tried to water dowsing? Bet you could do it, too. Water is a good conductor of electricity.
OH my, I thought you were a magical creature – and this proves it.
Since my childhood, wind-up watches have stopped running on my wrists. So I don’t wear a watch. And sometimes I am shocked at the light switches 7 little sparks shoot out, but the electrician always finds them to be working fine. But otherwise no other Reddy Kilowatt happenings for me. Some of you all are indeed forces to be reckoned with. We used to call it “animal magnetism” when we shocked another with the slightest touch. Boo does love the snow, bless his heart. I remember so many of my dogs did too. What fun we had playing with them in it.
You are in a magical winter wonderland! I sometimes get static shocks off cars and light switches, but that’s nothing compared to you guys. Good for you for giving blood.
I am sure most of the fellowship consider you to be a (hard worker) live wire, now we have confirmation 🙂
Seriously, I was always being shocked by my animals, touching metal doors or furniture. Somebody told me it was a build up of static which is positive ions normally blamed on electronic equipment emissions and friction generated by nylon. I bought a Himalayan Salt Lamp ( she whispers guiltily) and changed my floor rugs to cotton or pure wool. The lamp is a hollowed out piece of solid salt and has a 2.5watt bulb in it which is on 24/7/365. I do not get shocked by anything, and also do not break appliances. But then you know I always blame Mercury being in retrograde when these things happen. Maybe I should have a rethink ……
I am loving your photos but strangely only understand the concept how cold it is when I read your written temps. I usually begin to think I have been locked in the freezer when the temperatures drop below 17C 🙂 Laura
The photos! Absolutely delightful, especially the sunflower with a snow hat.
after reading all the comments and replies….I just think you get a bigger charge out of life than others!
I too break and jamb things up, get shocks from my pets, my husband, kids, the car, even the metal stripping around the edge of my desk (oh, that’s a Wowzer!) Love to see the blue sparks fly when I’m pulling clothes off at night in the dark (I turn the lights out just because I love seeing the sparks!) Like a light show. The little zappings sting, but it’s with the show. The strangest was when, after sitting in a softly lighted room for a meeting, a fellow rushed up to me and told me I had the brightest blue aura he’d ever seen! At that time, I didn’t know much about auras, but that has changed, Sure am glad I’m not the only one! Thought I was weird…………but I’m not, it seems. Thanks!
Eek…but we’ll done you!
Lordie! Don’t believe what I am reading – am absolutely and positively boring in comparison and have never met another ‘supercharged’ person either!! Am having dinner with some of my Medical School mates over the weekend: won’t that make for an interesting conversation!! Since my SA node has not wanted to be friends since childhood and my heart beats often source themselves from all over leading to unwanted and sometimes scary tarantellas I do wonder what would happen were I to touch you . . . 🙂 ?
Is that why, although it is extremely rare to be struck by lightning, some people have been struck by lightning twice or even three times? I know of someone who has been struck by lightning three times (the second time was only a few seconds after the first time, and in the same place), and someone else who was struck by lightning twice. However, I do not know of anyone who was struck by lightning just once. I am also aware of a grove of firs in which most of the trees had been struck by lightning within a somewhat short time (over a period of about two or three years), but lightning damage to other trees higher up is rare.
Interesting. My father had to insulate his watches from touching his skin or they would stop. He could also devine water. Any talent in that direction? Lots of little home experiments to try out. Stay positive😄
That is one unnerving experience. I will be curious to learn more.
So here’s my blood giving story from last evening: The young man who handled my donation forgot to fill the six tubes after the collection bag was full. He then had to use my other arm, inserting a much smaller needle, to collect the necessary blood for testing. He only filled three tubes, though, because he said that’s all that were really needed. I told him I did not want my AB+ blood to go to waste. He was a most friendly guy, but that friendliness (aka a lot of talking) distracted him.
Now here’s my husband’s story from our previous donation. Once his bag was filled, his blood stopped flowing so the tubes could not be filled. Eventually, the tech shifted to his other arm and finally got the additional blood she needed.
Thank you for donating blood. I hope it goes better next time.
I was telling my husband about your experience and he reports a similar experiences as the tubes were being filled following his donation. He, too, felt a jolt. The explanation offered to him is that the needle was moving inside the vein, that movement caused by the vacuum. He’s never experienced this before and has been donating for decades.
Extremely beautiful photography TY. George C Shuman
Thanx For Sharing
http://www.ambikaahuja.com/
Oh Celi .. I think I would have fainted. I’m not good giving blood for any reason .. some very interesting comments