Blood Donation

I did my 1st blood donation last friday!

It wasnt really scary. Recently, probably there was more campaigns about blood donations, the thing kept appearing in my mind. When I was in hospital, when I was at work.

So finally, when I received the reminder email about this blood donation drive held in my organisation, I finally buck up my courage and went alone.

The procedures were simple, filling up a form, getting a doc to did a blood pressure check, and all he did was to tick all the other 20 over boxes to certify that I am well and off I go and proceed to lying on the bed waiting to have my blood drawn. The nurses have a difficult time locating my veins because to them, it was too thin and soft. Finally they decide to drawn from my right arm and off I went, to change another bed.

The nurses explained thoroughly the procedures to me, then poke a syringe to inject some anesthesia, waited for a few more seconds, before pushing the bigger needle into the vein. I could still feel the aching pain when the needle was digging into my vein, deeper and deeper. I wanted to see what was done but the nurse shouted "Turn away ah, turn away, don't see"

The whole process took quite a while because my vein was soft and weak the the flow into the packet was not smooth. The nurse has to stay by my side and smoothen my arm to straighten the vein for the blood to flow better. About 20 mins later, the 300ml packet is full and its over.

Some iron tablets and a certificate was given to me while I rested at the sofa chatting with the student helper and I took a packet of raisins to munch on.

So much for the experience, it was all worth it. I come to realise that it is not truth that thin ppl are not suitable to donate. So long as your weight falls into the ideal (about 45kg and above), no major illness or unwell on that day, you can still be eligible to donate.

It is not that difficult after all, just look away if you are afraid of seeing needles. You be assured that you will be in good hands with the experience nurses to attend to you.

:)