Giving Blood

• Yesterday, I gave blood at the Evangel's 12th Blood Donation Drive. On official note, this will be my 3rd time donating blood. So what is blood donation? Well, blood donation is just having a needle poked into your arm and then see your blood flow down a little rubber tube into a bag. Many people think its painful, but they are not getting the real story. IN fact, blood donation is just that little bit of pain. Getting a cut on your finger is worse than blood donation, so go imagine.
• So my day starts off with waking up at about 1pm to go to church with my mum for the blood donation. Wanted to take a cab but took the bus, then train, then bus instead. Reached church and registered. The woman at the counter asked me if I ate my lunch, I said no. Well, turned out that I needed to eat before I donate, so I went to the cafeteria at the church to grab a bite. Ate 2 puffs and milo. Then I went on.
• After the registration and the consultation with the doctor, I had to test my blood. This is super familiar coz I had it twice in my previous blood donations, and once at the CMPB medical screening. What they did was to poke my finger with a stapler and then drew blood from there. Then they dropped a drop of my blood into a liquid and see it sink. It is supposed to see the amount of iron in there. Oh ya, the stapler don't hurt at all, its like a red ant that bites your finger, serious!
• After the blood test, I had to wait for my turn. Waited a long time coz the queue was so long! Looks like evangelites are pretty enthusiastic about giving blood! Then its my turn. I don't know why everytime I donate blood, they always choose to draw it from my master hand, my right hand. But nvm. So this is what they did. They squeezed my upper arm with the blood pressure thingy then gave me a toy to squeeze with my hand. Then they applied iodine on my hand and then, poke a needle inside.
• This needle is not the one that draws the blood. It makes your hand numb. When they place it in my arm, there is this burning sensation, but thats all. Scraping a knee is worse I think. Then my hand is numb. So they place this thick needle in. This one draws the blood. Its painless, coz my hand is numb. So the put it in my arm and blood flows into the tube then into the bag. They took some bottles of my blood as well.
• Apperently, they took a rather big bag of me blood. It was a huge bag. I was quite shocked but never really bothered about it. Then the nurse plucked out the needle and put bandage on the spot. And I am done. I relaxed for abit then went to the cafeteria and grabbed a bite. The whole procedure took less than 10 minutes.
• After that, I went to have lunch with my mum. And then, I had my blood donation hang over. I always experience this after blood donation. A headache and feeling very lerthagic. Very tired and sleepy. But its just me. I don't see other people feeling the same thing. So I needed was a sleep. I had a sleep and was fine again. Played FIFA and then blogged. :)
• So my note to people out there. Don't be scared about donating blood, its quite painless. It won't take too much time and it won't kill you. You will still have enough blood. It won't leave much scar on you, and you will feel good after donating. In fact, red blood cells die by itself even when we don't donate blood, so please don't let them go to waste. Donate blood. Your blood won't be able to cleanse sin like Jesus's, but it can surely save lives!