I really do not want this to come off the wrong way so before I begin I want to say that the American Red Cross does an awesome job at disaster relief all around the world. I personally appreciate the help and assistance that this organization provides both here and abroad. One of the services that they provide is to have blood drives and collect life saving blood for accident victims and sick folks that need it desperately. I was told that giving blood could save three lives. I was recruited by a co worker to do this several weeks ago and I must admit that the 10 gift certificate was very tempting especially since funds are so low. I made the committment and even though I hate giving blood I went through with it. I was one of the first 35 people to sign up and I figured that since they were taking appointments that the procedure would be fairly quick and hopefully painless. I was suprised to find out that while the procedure was mostly painless that it was nothing close to quick.
My appointment was at 1 pm yesterday so I arrived at 12:50 pm and I finally got out of the donation bus around 2:20 pm. I am glad that they screen people as closely as they do to make sure that they are getting a good supply of donated blood that stands a good chance as being usable. The first thing I had to do was get in line with three or four other people who were waiting and read a 14 page book that did its best to talk you out of giving blood especially if you are sexually permiscious or have traveled outside the country to different regions for any length of time. Luckily for them and fortunately for me I was not in any of the risk categories that would disqualify me for giving blood. The next step was to go into this tiny cubicle and have the volunteer ask you all sorts of questions, take your personal information and then ask you 49 questions that you have to answer either yes or no. The whole process with interruptions takes about 60 minutes.
I had several moments where I had to fight the urge to run out of the bus and get out of there. I was a big boy and stuck to my committment. Once I got on the donation couch and lay down I was out of there in about 15 minutes. The gentleman that did the procedure was very professional and answered all my questions and did his best to make me comfortable. The person taking the blood and those assisting seemed to have better people skills than those folks that were taking care ofthe pre donation phase of things. There were a couple of moments that I wanted to just go MOOOOO because I felt like I was in some sort of meat packing plant standing in line waiting on someone to whack me between the eyes with a ball pean hammer.
I woke up this morning and my arm looks like I have needle tracks. As a matter of fact when we had our luncheon at work today all of the co workers with me that donated looked the same way. The book I mentioned earlier warned us that this might occur. It has been a long time since I gave blood so I do not remember if this happened before or not. All in all I am glad that I overcame my fear of needles and endured the long process but I am hoping that the American Red Cross will find a better way to do this. Certainly the process can be shortened or optimized in some way so that we do not have to wait for 90 minutes. One of the things that was mentioned is that we believe the team that was there from the Red Cross was not expecting the turn out they got. Perhaps if they would have had a couple of more volunteers and an extra donation bus they could have processed more people quicker.
The important thing is that we donate if we can. This is the season for giving and there is nothing more precious than life giving blood that could save a life.
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