"May" We Tell You You ROCK?! (Remember! Both donors AND NON-donors are stars!)

[Winterlight]

Well, I tried this morning, but my iron was too low. I'll try again next time. 

[faithlessone]

Just booked my next appointment - January 6th. It'll be my 7th donation!

[Portugal79]

i've recently done my 12th donation, which i totally love. as lets face it there are few pains in life you can choose to go though and they told me that the blood i gave can save the life of 9 premature babies...how awesome is that?

[nutraxfornerves]

From an obituary about a local philanthropist in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

Warren Hellman, the San Francisco financier whose willingness to fund an unlikely range of passions made him a force in Bay Area politics, education and music, died Sunday evening from complications of leukemia...
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the San Francisco Free Clinic, the Bay Citizen and the San Francisco School Alliance. The family also requests a donation of blood or platelets to a local blood bank.

[Lady Snowdon]

I donated on Saturday!  I'm slightly concerned...almost every time I donate, someone near me either passes out, or comes very close to passing out.  Is it really that common?

Next donation is scheduled for Feb 11th.  Am I weird in getting a kick out of the fact that I'll be donating blood around Valentine's Day?

[jedikaiti]

I've donated more than a gallon, and I have only ever seen one person faint... and that was before she'd even gone near the donation chairs!

I think you've just had a bit of bad luck, there. Either that or something wonky with the screening process where you donate.

[nutraxfornerves]

Dumped of another pint today. I had a chat with the phlebotomist about donating and syncope (the fancy word for fainting)

She said that the biggest problems were at high school and college blood drives. It can be a sort of crowd thing--one person goes out and all of a sudden everyone else does as well. When the do these drives, they reconfigure the bloodmobile, so that donors face the back of other chairs instead of the faces of other donors. This has really cut down the number of fainters.

[snowfire]

DH and I donated again  yesterday.  I've donated over 60 pints & I've rarely seen people faint.  The only time I was aware of a mass fainting/feeling woozy was when a couple of guys were "racing" to see who could get their pint out the fastest. 

[catgal]

I can't believe that I haven't updated this yet. 

We had 8 donate at the beginning of December from work.  I had twice that number booked in, but a terrible flu is doing it's second round at the moment.  The blood bank were grateful for anyone going in as the flu and upcoming Christmas break meant a shortage was looming.  While we were waiting to going through, one of the nurses asked if anyone would donate plasma as they were a bit desperate. No-one said anything, so I thought I should be a bit of example and volunteered. I have never donated plasma as it seemed too scary.  Turns out I'm good at it - nice and fast with no reactions    I'll now be donating whole blood each three months with work and then go in each month in between and do plasma. When I went back to work everyone asked how plasma went - turns out a lot of people have considered it but were scared like me.  I now have 4 people lined up to do plasma with me each month!

Once again, thanks DottyG for getting this started and helping me get back to donating and helping others.  Special place in heaven for you.

[Outdoor Girl]

My Dad no longer donates but he still puts up the boards around town to direct people to the regular blood donor clinic.  In their infinite wisdom, Canadian Blood Services scheduled the clinic for Boxing Day.  I figured they'd be lucky to get 50 people through the door.

We stopped in at the end of the night when we were picking up the signs.  They'd had 130 people come in!  I don't know if all of those were able to give but it was still more than twice as many donations as I thought they'd get.  Normal numbers are close to 200.

Again, in their infinite wisdom, the clinic for this time next year is schedule for New Year's Eve!  It may actually be a good clinic if the late teens/20 somethings who party hearty realize that by donating a pint of blood, it'll take less alcohol to get drunk that night.

[Kitty_Cat]

I gained two and a half pounds, so I tried to donate blood, but my blood pressure was too low.

[jedikaiti]

I've given plasma a few times, and do NOT enjoy it. The local donation center has these nice chairs set up for plasma/components donors, with a computer you can play with, but I can hardly manage to look at the thing, as I keep having to pay attention to how fast/slow I am squeezing the ball to keep the flow rate in the right zone. That, and I always end up a little queasy afterwards.

[catgal]

jedikaiti, that would be frustrating having to sit and watch your flow rate the whole time as plasma takes far longer than whole blood.

It's summer here and we've had really hot days already.  With the plasma donation I found that I was really cold on the last return cycle.  I felt cold for a couple of hours after as well, so I will be taking a warm jacket next time I do plasma, even if it is in the mid 30oC.

[miss_ann_thrope]

I donated today! And I brought my brother with me, who also donated (his second time!)

Tweeted and Facebooked it, and spread the word.

[jedikaiti]

Yes, it is frustrating. I like to help, but I think I will be sticking with whole blood from here on out - both because of that, and because I'm now organizing regular blood drives at my office.