Blood Donation

3 months after the last blood donation campaign, it is finally BACK! Starting from today... Still remembered what had happened last time? Haha... yeapz there you go!

Anyway, today I finally handed in my "proof" being eligible for donation. Of course I was kinda excited but nervous at the same time. The nurse first counselled me with the questionnaire. After telling her I had diarrhoea past week, she straight away said, "You cannot donate today!"

*Faint*!!

She wanted to know the precise date, so... I cracked my head and think back. As you know, we have this portfolio and assignment thing due today as well, which means I've been under piles of books for so long! How would I remember!?! However, after my "supernatural-powered-memory" overtook my brain, I realised I was wrong. It wasn't the past week, but the past fortnight.

Rightz! I'm in good condition to donate! *chuckles*

First, she did an iron concentration test by pricking a needle into my middle finger. That was seriously an "Ouch"! I wasn't prepared for that! Next, the blood was filled into a glass slide kinda stuff and slotted into a machine. Well, I assumed it was a mini spectrophotometer for measuring the optical density. The results turned out to be fine - 135. I'm sure that it is in the "normal" normal range, not the "low" normal range. (Click here for my blood test result) A great increase from 27 to 135!! That is a big achievement! The doctor actually presribed me with Ferratin supplement tablets but an alternate method can be solved, which is by eating more red meat. In fact, I did not take any of her advices. I just had more red bean soup, red date soup, chinese herbal chicken soup... all those so-called 補血 ("restore blood" in direct word translation) goodies or another name - "girl's soup".

Jess was already lying on the seat when I walked out of the counselling cubical.

There you go... that's Jess.

Soon, it was my turn.

=)

I was very nervous... Can't imagine how thick the needle was until my nurse, Aletta, came to me, and showed that to me. She is extremely friendly. Before she insert the needle into one of the cubital fossa veins, she comforted me by saying, "Don't worry, it's not gonna hurt much. You might feel a sting in the beginning, but the pain would go off after half a minute or so."
I showed fear on my face.
"Oh Dar, you don't have to do it you know? It's alright if you want to back out now."
"No worries, I can do it." I answered with confidence.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?"
"Yes!" firmly, I said.
So, there I go... seeing such a thick needle going through my thin skin, into my veins, with some leakage of blood... (Oh clarify something: I didn't see the process of the needle going in but I saw the needle sticking inside my cubital fossa while donating. I never dare to see how it went in actually.) My nurse was being so nice, asking all sort of questions like are you feeling alright? Do you need more water? Do you want any juices? Of course, we chatted about "Biomedical Science", which she thinks that it's a difficult course. In fact, all the nurses there are extremely friendly. Although both Jess and I were the last two donors, they were very patient, even when they were very busy cleaning up. After 10 minutes or so... the whole process ended. They did not allow us to leave until they said so, hence there we were, chatting with the nurses again.

My 470cc of blood. Where's the other 30cc? They are in 3 separate tubes, which are for blood analysis.

Wanna know how Jess ended up?

She donated 1L of blood...

LoL!! Do you think it's possible? *Sigh*
This time, it's her turn to have some trouble. The nurse that helped her with the donation did not insert the needle into the correct position, therefore, another nurse tried the other arm. It was running perfectly fine until when her blood stopped flowing out. It's pretty weird so Aletta went to help. Unfortunately, it wasn't in good condition still. They finally gave up and declare an end to her donation. I was told by Aletta that the pitiful amount of blood from her will be used in experiments such as vaccination, immunisation, blood analysis, those kind of stuff we are learning now in HUBS2601. So, Jess, your blood is still in good use!! You are still doing something for the society!!