Donate blood

So I failed two times at donating blood because of varying mishap, and today earlier I got to the actual donating part of the process. They were going to fill a bag of 450 ml for hospital use, but I felt queasy from the start. My eyes started to haze out completely after a hundred ml, and the process was finally stopped at 120 ml.

Notes for next time:

Sleep more. I went to donate straight from work, I should have at least gone home to take a nap before donating. I wake up to work at about 4.30 am and really don’t go to sleep early enough in the evening, leaving only about 6 hours of sleeping time…

Eat better. I’m not going to skip breakfast next time. Actually I’ve been habitually skipping breakfast every day I’ve been working at this early bakery for the last three weeks. I ate some cake a few days ago and my stomach has been protesting it since.

Drink more. I took only about 2 dl worth of drink before donating. Next time I’m going to drink more and let it flow in the body for a while instead of rushing to the needle. The weather is really cold in Finland currently, around -25 Celcius in the mornings and about -20 Celcius during the day, which also dehydrates the body more than normal.

Don’t be so nervous. The first time jitters maybe had something to do with it. I have enough self-control to keep the panic in check, which I did after the bile creeped up my throat as the blood started to flow out, but I can’t do anything about it if I lose consciousness.

I don’t know whether to mark this as successfully ‘completed’ or let it become ‘failed’ as the time for the personal challenge runs out in just a few days. I did donate 120 ml of blood, but it of course went down the drain immediately afterwards. The next time is in two months, and I’m going to try again with better preparations.

If I described my feelings in one word after this (smaller) donation, I think I’d pick ‘light.’ Relaxed in a way I didn’t think was possible. My grandpa had a problem with the iron level in his blood, which made it necessary for him to donate regularly. I don’t have quite so high hemoglobin levels, but even after these weeks of lacking sleep and proper dining habits, I had 165 last week and 163 this week – it was about 175-180 when it was measured ten years ago. Donating should be a good idea with blood like that, so the body can sometimes get to use more ‘diluted’ blood. I still don’t know what my blood type is, maybe I’ll go and ask for it next Friday. Knowing my luck they’ve probably trashed all the blood samples I gave them.

As an afterthought, maybe my own actions caused problems with the donating. They said to clench my arm every once in a while to keep the blood flowing, but for some reason I kept clenching it constantly. This might have made the blood go out too fast.

I went to the Red Cross blood donation office after work today. Of course I didn’t have a donator’s card or any ID with me. So I go home and come back an hour later… In the short interview a nurse took a little blood sample from me and we talked about the requirements for donating blood. It turned out the flu I had two weeks ago was too close, so the donating has to be tried again later…

I have only ten days left in this personal challenge, and I can’t donate on weekdays Monday to Thursday since I have to be sharp at work 6am the following morning. The office is closed on weekends – figures.

It’ll be next Friday, or then this challenge goes to the bin.

I didn’t even eat any of their bread or pastries, since the bakery I work at, about 300 meters away from the office, is where all those are made. Kinda redundant, you know? :p

For one month, I’ll be training at a workplace about 50 meters from this office you can donate blood at. I’ll even see it every day when walking from the bus stop to work and back. Lets see if I can’t find some time to donate before the time limit for the personal challenge is over.

To finally make progress on this goal, after so many months since adding it to my list, I looked up where I can go to donate some blood. There are two possibilities close enough.

The bad part is they aren’t open on weekends. Wednesdays the biggest office is open 0800-1300, other weekdays 1100-1900. After work I’m always quite tired, and have little motivation to go do something like this. Maybe donating on Monday or Tuesday would be the only chance, since my muscles have lately started to cramp after work towards the end of the week…

I gave this personal challenge time until February 25th, because I know I have one holiday week somewhere in February. If all else fails, that’ll be the last chance. I bet they’ll close the office for that week. :)

I checked the requirements for donating blood and everything should be ok on that front.