Hearts Afire

ANNOUNCER: Hearts Afire is brought to you by the All of Us Research Project, which has a simple mission: to speed up health research. To get there we need 1 million or more people to join the program. Visit JoinallofUs.org/southtexasblood and find out how you can become one in a million. And now here's the host of Hearts Afire, Adrienne Mendoza
Adrienne Mendoza: Welcome to Hearts Afire, a South Texas Blood & Tissue and BioBridge Global podcast. This is our pilot season and we are excited to bring you the stories of our employees and our mission.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Today our guest is Christopher Palmer Charleston. Welcome, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Hey Adrienne, how are you doing?
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: I'm having a good morning how are you doing?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Great!
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: And you are our debut podcast guest, so congratulations for that. I know everybody is going to be excited about what's to come. We want to roll these out pretty frequently, so anyway thank you so much for being our debut guest.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: No problem.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: So I really just want to talk today about you and you as a person - how you love to work here, what brought you here, what makes you, you. So tell us first, what you do in your job?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: So my title is team leader for the Donor Pavilion here in San Antonio. In my job I basically do phlebotomy. I screen donors, I make sure that I take care of the staff members, make sure that they make sure that donors’ reactions are taken care of, paperwork and everything else.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: That's awesome. So where did you grow up? Are you are native of San Antonio or what?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Actually I'm a military spouse, so I actually came here with my husband and I was actually born and raised in southwest Philadelphia. And I basically went to college in South Carolina. So my bachelor's degree is in science my minor was pre-health.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: What brought you to that health care field and into this field in general?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: A funny moment, I actually took some certification courses at Midlands Technical College while I was in South Carolina, and it was it was funny because I got on scholarship and majority time they always went like ‘you need to try different areas and see what you actually like’ because my grandfather was very big on like ‘look if you work at a job you will be miserable if you find something that you like and you're passionate about you will enjoy your day every single day.’
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Yes is that the way you feel?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Well yeah because when I was taking the technical courses I learned cardiac care, EKG patient care, CAN. And I've done everything from taking care of people that lived since the Great Depression to actually taking care of people with heart conditions inside the hospital.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Well how does that make you feel when you see the impact on individuals?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: I never thought that there are some people that come inside the hospital sometimes, and you don't know if they're gonna make it or you'll see them traumatized to the point that you don't think that they'll recover.
And when you actually see somebody actually come back and they look like a normal person, i'm just looking, like wow, and I actually helped do that.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Yeah, yeah that that's a memorable moment for sure. When you when you see someone who might have not been able to make it without your help, without people like you helping them, really is meaningful. And so tell us, go a little bit back further about school so tell me more about where did you kind of get the key that inspiration to follow a certain path that you kind of find it after school, during school, before school?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: You know for me I kind of found my path over time but some people kind of know what they want and they go for it and go to school to get that. Honestly like when I was taking my technical training, like you would take four different courses and they would basically help you understand what you like more. And considering that I started working at Providence Hospital doing cardiac care, I remember this one day, literally I had nine monitors in front of me and this person had a heart rate of like 36 and I'm looking like oh my God what's going on this room?
I pick up the phone and the head technician went like ‘stop we have been bugging the nurses all night. Do not call them as long as it doesn't drop any further. Do not bug them at all.’ I want like his heart rate is making mine go up, but after experiencing that moment and everything, I enjoyed cardiac care but there were so many situations and moments that it's just like it was too stressful, yeah.
Then I started doing phlebotomy because I was already doing it in the hospital sometimes because sometimes they couldn't get a line in. They couldn't find a vein. I actually enjoyed it and I started doing work for the American Red Cross.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Yes and that is a connection point for us because I used to work for the Red Cross too. And where were you at the Red Cross? It was it in the blood services or disaster services because most people think about being one Red Cross but there's really two right?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Well that was the thing about it, I was in the blood services and I started out on the mobiles in South Carolina and then I transferred to Georgia to work in fixed sites. And when you're doing the mobiles and everything, all you're doing is just strictly blood, regular whole blood donations.
When you go into the fixed sites, I'm doing regular blood donations, then I'm doing red cells and I'm doing plasma and platelets. Most people don't understand each donation that they do it kind of has a certain impact and sometimes I can help out more people doing one procedure than the other.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Very, very true. Do you like kind of the educational aspect of talking to donors and telling them about how they can help other people, and what specifically they can do?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: I actually have a lot of donors to come in to donate on a regular basis when they find out what their blood type is and how it's more, let's say, versatile or usable, especially when we have an O-neg donor come in and everything's just like ‘I so want your blood I'm not a vampire, but right now I'm going to act like one.’
It's very true and they know it too. Once they realize they're O-negative they know there's it's a golden sort of blood. You know that they're needed and so much so for like pediatric patients, people who we don't know their blood type, but you know I always think it's interesting to hear people's reaction to the other blood types too and when they realize that it's not just O-negative but also the other blood types that are needed for different purposes. It's always kind of fun to see their reaction because there's always that assumption that they have O-negative and that's all that we need.
I have one lady that comes in and she donates three units of platelets every time she sits down, and all it takes her is like an hour, maybe an hour and 10 minutes, and it's only because her platelet count is so high. I'm just looking like, ‘look I thank you for actually giving up your time once a week to actually help people out.’
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Love it. So what do you do outside of work? What do you like to do as a hobby, as other interests?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: So I paint. We also do a lot of smooth jazz and everything in the background when we're actually doing a lot of poetry with the family, and my nieces become a fan of when I play my cello.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: You play cello? Oh wow, I could have a band because you know there's a lot of instrument players here. I used to play trumpet. I know Emmanuel plays guitar, you know he's from global quality, plays guitar. There's some singers, cello player now we've got trumpet players. I think we've got a whole collection. So how often do you play it still?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: I play once a month usually really in like a band or usually it's at home just to make sure that I keep up with my scales and everything else.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: That is so neat, I love that. What inspires you in your cello playing, in your art in that case or in terms of the painting. You said you paint and you do art what kind of art do you do majority of the time?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: It is just self-expression and I get a lot of self-satisfaction from the music that I create because sometimes I'll come up with a combination and I remember one of my teachers back in the day, she was just looking like ‘where did you learn this from?’ Like I just did it.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: So it just kind of comes to you right? It comes through, and through your instrument for the art to kind of transform into reality, right?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: My mother was so happy because she went like ‘look you were breathing hard half the time’ when I actually took up the clarinet and everything because that was the first instrument I learned. When I picked that up, she went like ‘you can actually breathe now?’ Like yes, you look don't worry about the inhaler.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: That's true, it can it can bring you to a several level of peace that you know you can you can keep going. So um tell us your favorite story about what you do outside of work. I mean you talked about the cello, you talked about art, is there something like a favorite story about something that happened relevant to those things, or anything else you want to talk about?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: I enjoy going out with my husband. Sometimes it's an adventure, because sometimes we like to try different restaurants and everything else. I don't know what I'm going to expect when we go out, and no matter. The other night and everything we decided to go to Popeye’s just to go get some chicken, and they invited him to come back and make our food for us and he actually went back behind the counter and made the food.
I was just like oh OK Popeye’s they let him, they let him back there. Literally I was just looking like ‘do not fool with him he will actually come back there and make it’ and she actually went like ‘come on I was.’ I couldn't stop laughing because I just was like only in San Antonio. I have never experienced this.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: What other places?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: You know, I haven't been to a lot of, I'm kind of a creature of habit. People over here off of Fredericksburg Road at Grady's know me quite well. Whenever I go in they know that I'm there for my barbecue. But I don't explore enough of new places.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Is there a place that you should recommend to anyone listening they should try, in San Antonio have you ever, even if they're in Atlanta?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: I don't know if you've been to Atlanta too, because I know you're gonna have listeners there well hold it. I did fixed sites in Atlanta, like yes all of Georgia, I've been to every single fixed site in Georgia. It was funny because when I transferred from South Carolina to there, it was a moment.
But as far as restaurants have you been to Fat Boys Burgers and Hot Dogs?
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: No I haven't.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: It is literally right down the street on Vance Jackson and everything and they have the best burgers.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: What kind what kind of you get when you go there?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: So I have tried the fatty boy burger and I think it's like a half a pound burger and everything and I did lettuce, tomato, bacon, onions, like look I just said ‘toss everything on top of this burger.’
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Yeah is it like really greasy or is like a regular like a nice dry burger?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: it's actually like a nice dry burger thing but the thing is I think that you need to split it with somebody because it's so big because just like their chicken sandwich and everything like it's a chicken breasts basically sliced open in half and everything and they put it on a plate and I'm looking like ‘I can't eat all this there's no way.’
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Well so out in Atlanta when you guys were out there, what did you do? Is there a similar place that you would go to and uh you could go to?
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Lady Bird’s, it's a nice um three-course meal place and literally the courses are laid out by the chef and everything and it's meant to go like you can't mix and match you have to go with that course whichever course you choose, and it's like three different the appetizer, the entree and then dessert. They all fall in line but you only have three choices whenever you go there.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: I've got to try that out well hopefully we have listeners out there in Atlanta who can go if they haven't been to Lady Bird’s he said. So tell us about yourself, that something about yourself that no one here at work would know.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: This always tricky one but something no one would know, I take the information that most of my donors give me every single day and I basically use it in my daily life. And it's kind of funny I met a guy in California when I was working for the Red Cross out there and the hat that he was wearing, I remember I remember it was it was expensive. I could just tell by it.
But he was one of the original investors of stock in Tesla, and he was just coming in and donating everything. But he was just giving me stock tips and everything else and I was just looking like ‘I'm actually talking to a piggy there right now.’ Yeah you have all had all walks of life that come in, celebrities, billionaires, people who are just you know getting by and then you have students and it's just, but you one thing that's like throughout every single donor they've just got a really, really good heart, they're doing it for the right things. That's really nice to be a part of every day, to be able to meet people who are genuinely just good people.
I actually enjoy most of my donors who come in because they are actually giving up their time and they're not expecting anything in return and sometimes their time is actually more precious to us than then to them sometimes. Because I had I remember I was at a mobile blood drive and I think my back I was in South Carolina at the time and this person, we didn't have any O-neg on the shelf at all, there was nothing left, and I had to draw this one person that we actually knew was O-neg at a high school blood drive that day. If I missed or anything messed up, the person that was on the table was not going to make it.
So as soon as I drew the tubes and everything else, I wrapped everything else, I made sure the paperwork was good, I tossed everything into the bin and the state trooper literally took it out of my hand and ran straight to the hospital. All they had to do was test the tubes.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Wow that you're definitely a difference maker, when that happens you know someone's life is saved because of the work you're doing and it's just a credit to how much you probably think about that final impact every single day.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: It's probably why I enjoy blood baking so much, because when I first started out with the American Red Cross, I'm telling you I wasn't expecting half of the things to walk through the door that I wasn't gonna see. And I think that's why I like South Texas Blood & Tissue, too because I don't know who I'm going to meet on a daily basis. Half the time I'm just trying to adjust or trying to figure out how to make the day work.
ADRIENNE MENDOZA: Well thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited you are our first guest and I think it's great to start it with you.
CHRISTOPHER PALMER CHARLESTON: Thank you, thank you.
ANNOUNCER: Executive producers of Hearts Afire are Heather Hughes and Jay Podjenski. Your director is David King with technical assistance from Matt Flores. Our logo was designed by Roberto Esquivel. Our host is Adrienne Mendoza. If you have an idea for Hearts Afire, please feel free to email us at HeartsAfire@biobridgeglobal.org