Donation time

Today I donated blood again but it seemed a bit iffy as to whether it would happen or not. There seemed to be a few problems going against my chances today. Before today I would have suggested my blood pressure would be too low as it’s been quite low when I’ve checked it in the evenings lately, around 95/55 on a couple of occasions. But that wasn’t the problem today as it was very much within the normal range. The first problem was my haemoglobin level was 23 lower than the last time I gave blood. It has been within the normal range both times but it seems a drop of more than 20 requires further testing. I had some blood drawn from my vein (first time was from the finger prick test) and it was tested and it was still kind of iffy. Somehow it was given the okay after what seemed like a convoluted calculation. The second issue was the difficulty finding a suitable vein, despite me being well-hydrated. There was much tapping along the insides of my arms to find my veins and personally I found that far worse than the blood draw itself. Eventually some success was had and there were no issues with the actual donation. Even before all this, I arrived there and there was no record of my appointment on their system. I organised it all online and received a confirmation email with the day and time. After I’d finished there, I had to sit in the canteen and have a drink and some food before leaving. While there I checked my emails and I had not made a mistake as I had feared to begin with.

I was asked early on about also donating plasma as there is currently a shortage here so I am scheduled to donate plasma in a month and whole blood again in January. Apparently plasma can be given every two weeks but that’s a bit more frequent than I am willing to do right now. Besides I’m not sure my veins would hold up too well doing it that often.