31. Give blood

Completed: April 15, 2010
To this day, I still have no idea why I wanted to do this. Now, I can deal with blood. I have worked as a lifeguard, I am clumsy and I have three younger brothers. Blood is something that I see on a day to day basis, and I'm totally cool with it. But needles are absolutely terrifying to me. I hate needles. In grade seven when we had to get the hepatitis B shot in school, I think I paced for an hour outside of the library where the nurses had been set up. I don't know why, but I think it has something to do with the way that the doctor's make sure that there is no air in the syringe and the liquid squirts out a bit. Just the thought of it makes me cringe.

I also hate how the doctors will always try to distract you while they give you needles. They'll talk to you about anything. I remember once my doctor was playing 'Distract The Patient' with me while she was taking stitches out of my foot, I told you I'm clumsy. She kept asking me about what I got for Christmas while it felt like she was slowly removing large chunks of tissue from the arch of my foot. I was crying and she thought it was funny because when she took stitches out of my sister's foot, she was laughing. My sister's feet are extremely ticklish. That, unlike mine, was an effective game of 'Distract The Patient.'

I wanted to do it though. Those sappy commercials that you always hear on the radio always tapped on my heart strings! I knew it, they knew it. It was in me to give, and I was ready... Ha. Ha. Ha. I wanted to make sure that that person who was in a car accident would have enough blood in their system to recover.

So I was at all you can eat sushi with my sister one day, and my friend Daniel who has a list as well texted me and told me that was he was giving blood at the community centre that day. I told my sister that that was on my list and she suggested that we both go together. We called the 1-800 number Daniel sent to me and off we went, tummies full of sushi and blood full of sugar. We were both really excited. I was excited because it was another thing to check off my list. Elise, because she had wanted to give blood when she was living in Calgary but her blood sugar was too low.

We arrived, were given our juice boxes and filled out some forms with some of the weirdest questions...
1. a) Are you feeling well today? 
Nope. I thought I'd give you my blood while I feel as though I'm infected with the black plague.
4. e) In the last 6 months have you had an injury from a needle or come in contact with someone else’s blood?
YES! Blood sisters for life!... No.
5. a) In the last 12 months have you had a rabies shot or a graft?
Shoot... Actually, someone trapped a bat over my head with a garbage bag once... I had the rabies shot after that.
13. Have you, in your past or present job, taken care of or handled monkeys or their body fluids?
Yes. I love monkeys and their fluids.

16. Have you used cocaine within the last 12 months?
Me: *SNIFF* Sorry, what was the question?

Volunteer: Have you used cocaine within the last 12 months?

Me: Didn't I tell you Charlie Sheen is my best friend? DYING IS FOR FOOLS!
19. Male donors: Have you had sex with a man, even one time since 1977?
December 31st, 1976.
21. Have you had sex with anyone who has AIDS or has tested positive for HIV or AIDS?
Absolutely, yes.
22. Female donors: In the last 12 months, have you had sex with a man who had sex, even one time since 1977 with another man?
Well, this is awkward... 

For some of the questions I was just thinking to myself, "IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?!" But of course, most of the questions were totally reasonable. Don't want no prostitute blood flowing through my veins. But the monkey fluids question really threw me off. What does that have to do with ANYTHING? 

The last thing I had to do before they drew blood was go into this cubicle and have a woman ask me if I would feel comfortable giving a close friend or relative my blood, if yes, then I would take the yes sticker and put it on my blood bag. If no, than I would put it on my blood bag and they would turf it. It had barcodes so the nurses wouldn't know the difference, it was totally anonymous. But really, at this point, you should know what kinds of bloods they're looking for. If you're a prostitute or a crack head, they don't want any of your blood. Sorry. 

So I quickly put the yes stickers all over my bag, after the nurse left the cubicle. All I could think to myself was "Wow, this is so awkward and sketchy."

After that, everything went really smoothly for me. I got my blood taken, didn't faint, even got a cookie and a juice box! Elise on the other hand didn't get to give blood again, because she had just had her arms waxed like 2 days before and her skin was all bumpy and red. So the nurses decided that her skin was unfit for probing. I went home feeling 100% and when I got home, I hit a brick wall. I just felt so tired, so I took a nap and then took some pictures of my neat bandage. I also had a bruise on my arm for 3 weeks. It was probably the most disgusting bruise I've ever seen and people always asked me about it. They probably thought I had been mugged. But I explained every time that I had given blood. It was, after all, in me to give.

To donate blood in Canada and information on donating blood go to The Canadian Blood Services Website.