This week I was finally able to cross something off my bucket list – Donating blood.
I went with a friend from work clearly for morale support. I hadn’t really thought about the fact I was going to have 1 pint of blood taken from me. I do know that sounds ridiculous, but it hit me when we arrived, when I could see about 7 people hooked up to their own little donation stations: All doing their good deed for the day. At which point I started to become nervous.
After having my medical check, I was then ready to sit in the donating chair. (Which were amazing). The chairs were a sort of arm chair that swung back – similarly to garden furniture but on a swing mechanism, that tilted backwards.
The nurse that was assigned to me was very reassuring and kept me chatting the whole way which was lovely 🙂 Thanks Peter!
It didn’t actually hurt as much as I thought it would. The worst part for me was the little pin prick they do to test your blood before hand. That I always hate that.
I was hooked up to the machine and waited until the required amount had been taken, which for me was 9.44 seconds.
All was fine, I had done it!
The process of getting out of the chair however was a little more problematic. To ensure that you don’t faint with the rush of blood when you stand up, they bring the chair up in stages to allow you body change to balance.
Apparently my body didn’t want to balance out and instead gave me the feelings of fainting. It was not very pleasant at all! Every time I would get to the half way point, I would have a horrible feeling in my stomach and then my head would start to become all rushy and the edges of my vision started to blacken. The nurse then pushed to chair straight back down and then rush of blood straight back to my head would make me feel better again. This went on for another 45 minutes. Which was highly frustrating and embarrassing!
In the end after eating 4 chocolate bars and biscuits, I was finally feeling better to leave.
Apparently it affects people in different ways, and a number of things could have contributed to me feeling faint.
The amount I ate (which I thought I’d done pretty well), relief as it was over being my first time, my weight, bloody pressure.
Overall I’m very glad I’ve done it, and was lovely to know that my donation will save three people’s lives.
I will definitely carry on giving blood when I can. Although I had a little problem after the donation it really wasn’t as bad as I thought. Was very quick and easy. My only suggestion is to make sure you eat a lot!
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