Blood Battle 2013!

This week on campus there is a blood drive going on!  This is the American Red Cross, and also a little friendly competition between a few other universities in the state.  Hence the title Blood Battle 2013!

So I decided that I should be the good person because I have the good blood and I donated this afternoon.  I have donated before, but it has been several years since the last time I donated in the US, I used to go all the time before I went to Japan.  I even donated once in Chile and once in Japan!

I did eat my breakfast this morning, but silly me I didn't eat lunch and I thought that the just snack I ate (big mistake) would be enough before I went to donate.  I made it through the process of taking the blood just fine (with only one minor bump), but the trouble started after the needle came out!

I started to feel a light-headed, so I told the phlebotomist, and then it just went downhill from there!  I started to feel hot and then cold!  My body (specifically my hands, arms, legs, and feet) started to cramp up and lock in weird positions.  I was unable to straighten my fingers or wrists and it was very painful!  I joked that this must be what arthritis feels like, but I'm sure it is more painful that what I experienced.  When I was relating this adventure to a friend, she said that instead of arthritis it sounded more like rigor mortis!

Two other phlebotomists came over and started to massage my extremely cold hands and also had me breath into a paper bag!  I felt a little embarrassed at the time, but what could I have done... nothing!  At this point the ARC was closing up for the day and I was one of the last ones there, one thing to be happy about!  After about 10 minutes, my muscles started to relax and I could move my fingers without much pain.  This is when the shaking set in.  So then I joked that I've moved on from arthritis to palsy.  It took me another 15 minutes before I felt comfortable enough to walk out of the room and not faint or fall flat on my face!  In all of that time (from the moment I started to feel light-headed until I left) I had 2 cans of juice, 1 bottle of water, 1 banana, 1 bag of cookies, and 1 bag of pretzels.  This will not stop me from donating in the future, however the next time I go I will eat a lot so this doesn't happen again!

The one minor bump was due to the fact that my vein in my left arm moved a little when the needle went in, so there was a little bit of pain that lasted longer than normal.

The best thing about this experience is that I was able to kind of keep a sense of humor about the ordeal.  And now I can laugh about it! 

~Adventures in Anything & Everything