I donated blood the other day, for the first time ever. I’m ashamed to say, at 29 years of age, I had never given blood before. I had often thought it was something I should do, it’s an easy thing to do to help others and requires minimal sacrifice and time. I guess I just never got around to it.
Until the other day. Off I trundled, ’round to my local blood donation centre. I was prepared, and quite happy to have 500ml of blood taken out of my body. Half a litre.
I filled out all the forms (and weren’t there a lot!) and then Bron, my nurse, took me into the interview room to weigh me, check my blood pressure and my iron levels. All perfect (of course!).
Bron told me that the 500ml they would take from me today was about one tenth of the total amount of blood in my body.
“We have around 5-6litres of blood in our bodies, depending on how big you are. Obviously big people have more,” Bron said.
Nice one. So 500ml should be no sweat.
Bron also explained what was going to happen – needle in my arm, blood goes into the bag, some goes into a couple of vials for testing, then when I’m done just stick around for 10 mins or so, have a drink, some bikkies then on my way.
Too easy.
I ignored the bit about side effects – bruising, feeling ill, fainting, collapsed veins etc etc. I told her, with great confidence, that she would not have a problem with my veins. I am told I have great veins.
Well … it’s something to be proud of!!!
So I sit in the dentist’s chair – it was kinda like that … but with comfy arm rests – and I roll up my right-hand sleeve.
“Brilliant!” Says Bron, clearly impressed with my superior veins!
I roll up my left-hand sleeve.
“Oh wow!”
“Um, Bron, are you going to wet your pants? Told you I had good veins!”
How impressive am I?
Bron explains that most people have a “good” vein in only one arm … not many people have two “good” arms. Clearly having a choice is a novelty because Bron didn’t know which one to go for!
She settled on the right. I didn’t really care either way.
So the needle goes in and she takes the first 30ml for testing and then lets the rest run into the bag. I get a rush as I watch it run in. I was thinking that someone who really needs this is hopefully going to get better, because of what I have done today.
“You’re helping three people with this donation,” Bron tells me. Apparently, my donation gets broken down to: platelets, plasma and red cells.
In six minutes my donation is complete. How easy was that?
I’m told I can donate again in 12 weeks’ time, but if I am interested in donating plasma, I can do that every two weeks. They take the blood out of your body, run it through a machine and put your red cells back into your body … amazing! It takes a bit longer though. Bron also mentions having tests done to become a bone marrow donor.
Well, I’m thinking of signing up for all three. I felt so good about donating my blood, I want to help a much as I can.
It’s such a simple thing to do, it takes no sacrifice and very little time. But it can, and does, save people’s lives every single day.
- Em From Jem
