Donating Blood

When I was growing up, my mom used to donate blood.  I remember her doing it all the time, I remember her bringing home the stickers.  I always respected her for it and I always said I would do it, but I never did.  For awhile, I just never thought about it.  I was young and living my life and it just never crossed my mind.  As I got older, I developed borderline high blood pressure.  I don’t take any meds for it so it’s not bad, but I always assumed that it effected the chances of donating blood.  I spent some time at the hospital a couple of weekends ago while my sister-in-law was having surgery.  I spent one whole day hanging out with her husband while she was in the operating room.  I don’t remember how it came up, but we were talking about blood types and I had no idea what mine was.  I think I mentioned about donating blood, but I didn’t think I could because of my blood pressure.  He told me he didn’t think it mattered and being as he’s a firefighter and does all kinds of search and rescue, I figured he knew what he was talking about.  So yesterday, I went and got screened and donated.  It felt pretty awesome.  I’m eligible to donate again the first part of January and I plan on going back.  From what I read, one donation can help up to 3 people and considering the surgery that my sister-in-law ending up requiring her to get some blood, someone that donated helped her out.  How can you overlook that?

I recommend everyone to go get screened and donate if you can.  I was in there about an hour but it was also my first time so I imagine it’ll be quicker the next time.  As I was sitting there having the blood drawn, I was thinking maybe next time, I’ll bring my Kindle and get some reading done.  But it actually only ended up taking 5 minutes, 35 seconds to draw it.  The nurse said I was a fast bleeder, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  There were 4 other people getting blood drawn, and when I left, the same 4 people were still there.  So I would definitely say I was faster than everybody else.  You should go and do it because you can help, plus, you get free cookies and some juice