Who Would Have Thought That Giving Would Be So Hard!

Today I decided to do something that I have never done before. Something I have wanted to do for ages but to be honest was a little bit scared and didn’t want to do it alone.

I Gave Blood!

My friend and I were driving past the Red Cross van yesterday but they were closed so we promised ourselves to come back today and we did. I was a little bit worried that they wouldn’t accept me as I was diagnosed with Anemia early last year and there was a Iron level test that I had to pass before they would accept me - I passed with flying colours.

So here I was laying on the chair - my friend and gone before me and he got through fine, so I wasn’t stressing that much. The lady taking my blood asked me which arm to stick the needle in and me being logical said ‘my left arm, because I am right handed’ (my sister later told me this was a bad choice - she works in a medical lab). They stick the needle in my arm but the blood doesn’t really flow as good as they expected, so they fiddle with the needle - stabbing me each time.

Coming to the conclusion that they need to use my other arm, they proceed to stick the needle in my right arm and everything starts proceeding smoothly. I got told that if I started feeling faint all I had to do was tell them but everything was going good - until it was all over and they took the needle out!

As soon as they took the needle out, I started blacking out. Straight away I tell the lady ‘I think I am going to faint’ and she lays me down, telling me to keep my eyes open and breathe. It was such a weird feeling I have never passed out before and hope I never do after that - my friend told me that I went so white (which is an effort for me, as I have olive skin) and I just laid there for about 10 minutes.

Everything turned out fine, and I was just out of it for the next couple of hours. But when I think of how what I did has the possibility of saving someones life, I would gladly go through all of that again - and I will be in three months time. I strongly recommend that you take the time to donate some blood. I don’t know about where you all live but in Australia blood levels are really low and anything we can do to help we should.

Sorry about the personal post, but it is the major thing that happened to me today. This will be my last post before I leave on Monday morning (Saturday night here), I have timestamped 2 of the guest posts (still waiting on 1 - maybe 2 more) to start on Monday morning and I would love you to warmly accept the posts and give the authors a kind reception! I will be back Friday!