Giving Blood Yesterday

 

I'm 38 years old and yesterday was my first time giving blood. 

I was drawn to the idea for several reasons. My company offers paid time off for volunteer work and I recently discovered that giving blood qualifies. I gave blood at Vitalant, formally Bonfils, and they will check my blood for Covid antibodies and let me know the results which I'm very curious about. And I did it on a day where I was meeting my friend, Faith, and knocking off early and spending more time with her was a big part of the appeal.

I signed in and took a seat and was told someone would be with me shortly, and they were. A young lady called my name just a few seconds after I settled my butt cheeks it seemed. Something about the way her voice projected from behind her mask made it a little difficult to actually tell who called me at first, but then we made eye contact. 

We spent some time in a small triage type room like you would find in an urgent care facility. She asked some questions, including height and weight. I found that interesting because they take the amount of blood they take based on my weight, but they took my word on how much I weigh. She took a finger prick of blood to make sure I had enough iron in my blood to share. My number was good and she said it could have been higher if my hands weren't so cold (my hands are always cold) and I found that interesting but didn't ask more questions on that. 

I was wearing layers because it was a high of 39 yesterday. Live and learn- a compression type long sleeve base layer shirt is not conducive to giving blood. I managed to pull my sleeve up for the blood pressure and for her to check if I had track marks but that situation would not do at all for the actual giving blood process.

I asked a lot of questions and she was very patient and friendly with me. I was also very concerned that I would faint like the guy in the movie While You Were Sleeping. Based on my blood pressure, she didn't think I should be concerned. She said people who faint are so hyped up before hand and have a huge release afterwards and that causes a huge drop in their pressure and down they go. Something like that. 

After I was all cleared to give blood she went and scouted an open bed for me. I changed out of my long sleeved shirt and was ready to go. 

I was then handed off to the care of the woman doing the actual poking. She explained what she was doing every step of the way, which I appreciate. I think we even talked about that some people don't prefer that. Like- just do what you're going to do and don't tell me about it. I'm definitely not that way. She let me know where the tape on my arm was going to go, every detail of the process. 

There was a decent amount of scrubbing to my very clean looking arm, a bit of a wait for the alcohol to evaporate, and then it was showtime! I was surprised by the size of the needle. It was huge! I could look into the needle and see into it like a train tunnel. I've never had that experience before. It certainly seemed bigger than the ones at the doctors office used for small blood samples. 

"Deep breath in. Deep breath out."

I followed her instructions and was so distracted by following my breath I now can recall if she entered my arm on breath in or breath out. She taped down the tubing and I felt the warmth of the blood flowing through the tube. It was surprising and I commented on it and she laughed and said something along the lines of "It's warm because you're not a corpse." Makes sense. The tubing split off in two directions. One tube went to the bags filling up with my blood and the other she used to take samples using those vacuum tubes I was more familiar with. She finished collecting those after a few minutes and clamped down and closed that tube. 

All the while I was squeezing a little stress ball so my blood would keep flowing and not coagulate. It registered to me that the stress ball was branded with my credit union's logo and I wondered if they donated money to Vitalant. She checked in with me on this whole process and I asked again how often I should be squeezing this thing and I think it wasn't a lot, like once or twice a minute. I was probably doing more the whole time, even though she explained this wasn't supposed to be a workout. Also there was a blood pressure cuff on my arm and it made it difficult to squeeze that damn ball. She loosened it's grip a bit and it was more comfortable after that. 

With all the activity and distractions it was over pretty quickly. I was giving whole blood which has the shortest length of donation time. The sign up didn't make a lot of sense to me. There were options for Whole Blood, Power Red, Plasma, Platelets, Covid Plasma, Source Plasma. I knew I didn't qualify for the Covid Plasma but the rest was all gibberish. I figured I'd donate the whole thing and they can take from it what they want! I learned that it cost them time and money to process whole blood and they probably would have preferred I donated plasma or platelets instead. Maybe next time.

Which brings up a good question- will there be a next time? I don't know. I can't donate again until 4/1. So, that gives me some time to think about it. A couple of the ladies there talked about donation track marks. I don't want donation track marks. I guess that sounds kind of lame when we're talking about saving people's lives but the fact remains. In the Pro column- giving blood is like giving away 600 calories! That's kinda cool. And I may have saved 3 people's lives. That's not bad for a Thursday. Oh and I didn't mention the snacks! Who doesn't love free food?! Free food tastes better.

When my blood bags were full I was led in another round of in breath and out breath and the needle was out. I was instructed to hold my arm up and apply pressure. My first helper (the one who triaged me) went and fetched me a bag of pretzels and an apple juice. I felt like a big deal. When they checked my arm a few minutes later, I was still squirting blood. More minutes of applying pressure. Finally she wrapped a tight bandage around my arm. It was VERY tight. I was sick of it about an hour or so later and attempted to remove it. But my arm was STILL bleeding! (I was at a restaurant with Faith at that point and she had to bandage me back up at the table. Very gross and kind of embarrassing.) That was a bit worrisome until I actually READ the paper they sent me home with that said to keep the bandage on for at least 4 hours.  

All in all it was a fun experience. I did NOT faint. I felt a little . . . tired? Maybe? I don't even know how to explain it. It was such a slight off feeling, hardly worth mentioning. I got to gross my kids out with my arm and my story. That was a big plus. 

I'd do it again. I think. 

(I found this blog post that I think is pretty good and to the point of getting over excuses to donate 10 Reasons You Don't Give Blood)

Me

The Donation Center