The ad I’d seen featuring smiling attendants suggested an experience similar to one at a sedate hospital. The facility I entered buzzed like a school lunchroom. There were first-timers waiting to complete the initial medical exam, and regulars hurrying to check in at automatic computer terminals. Easily 50 to 60 “plassers” were present at any given moment, the crowd continually ebbing and flowing. All were like me—hopeful, needy, and impatient to get paid.

I received an oral examination. I was not surprised by the many questions about my sexual behavior, but I was taken aback by repeated questions regarding tattoos. Three times I was asked if I had lied and “really” had tattoos. After the clinicians tested a blood sample for protein levels, I underwent a bare-bones medical checkup. But I questioned its efficiency given that my examiner ran through scores of questions so fast I had to ask him to repeat himself. I spotted a sign: NO PAYMENT UNLESS DONATION IS COMPLETED.

"Plassers" receive payments on a special debit card that extracts a surcharge whenever they use it. Curiously, while my examiner hurried me through the screening, he did patiently lay out the payment scheme. Did he know how desperate I was? His “Don’t worry. You’ll pass” attitude may have expressed condescension, unprofessionalism, or benevolence.

My extraction went smoothly. I left with a ray of hope that I could “plass” next month’s rent money. The literature provided at U.S. centers ubiquitously states that "donating plasma is safe." Its side effects are limited to "mild faintness and bruising." (My brochure also added, "Other possible side effects will be explained by our medical staff," though I can’t say any such explanation stayed with me.) But the following day my body received an impromptu schooling in the price tag of the world I had entered.

It happened at about five o’clock the next day. Unexpectedly, with no apparent cause or logical relationship to physical exertion, I felt my legs go rubbery. I was Silly Putty. This was something more than “mild faintness” and particularly disturbing because of the aspect of a random attack. I suddenly felt so weirdly fatigued that I couldn’t stand on my feet. I barely reached the couch before I passed out for five hours straight. Luckily, I was safely ensconced at home. But since I substitute teach as well as freelance write I woke up wondering: What would I do if that happened at my day job?

What had happened? I had received my welcoming to the subtle physical changes, possibly exacerbated by work and poverty, which may be the upshot of plassing. And my research began.

* * *

Biotest, CSL Plasma, Yale Plasma. These are some of the funny corporate names that dot my state, New Mexico, and maybe yours. Or OctaPharma. Or Biolife. Plasma reaped from paid U.S. donors makes up about 70 percent of worldwide collections. The United States is conversationally known in the industry as “the OPEC of plasma collections.”