I'm doing 25 things
Well now I moved house and live right next to a blood donation suite I thought I’d finally do this.
After filling out a lot of forms and having the iron content of my blood checked (it was fine) I was sat in a reclining chair and they inflated a cuff around my left arm. After prodding around in the crook of my elbow for a while they decided it was a no go as the veins were too small and dragged all the kit around to the other arm. This arm was slightly better and after pumping my hand until it felt like my fingers were going to fall off, they finally got the needle in. It was difficult and quite painful, I was told that my vein was about the same size as the needle they were putting into it, and they had to wiggle around the needle to get the blood to flow.
After a few minutes they decided that my blood wasn’t flowing quickly enough and the donation had to be discontinued. Even though I’d only donated 88ml they said they couldn’t attempt to use a different veins as that counted as a full donation.
I drank three glasses of water prior to donating blood, but I was advised to try again in 16 weeks and start drinking a lot of water two days before donating. I’ll give it another shot and if it doesn’t work, I might have to give up on this goal.
I was quite disappointed that I wasn’t able to give blood, especially as the needle was quite sore while it was in my arm. I am generally ok with needles and tolerate pain well but getting the needle in took a few minutes of wiggling which was very uncomfortable.
