Recently, the blood bank is low on its supply of blood again and there is appeal in the newspapers to the public. It came timely as I am intending to do my first blood donation within these few days. It was supposed to be a "project" I set for myself last year. I made an appointment with HSA after Christmas, I thought it would a wonderful way to end the year by saving lives. Alas, I think I was overcame with fear of donating blood that I had a fever on Christmas day. Hence, I had to wait for 3 weeks before I am eligible to donate blood. I made an appointment, 18 Jan to fulfill my little wish to give back to society.
Yes, today is the day. Actually, in the morning, I was still gripped with fear. I never like drawing blood for they made me feel sick, it made me feel like a patient. Perhaps, it is because I have been drawing too much blood due to past aliments.
The process is a painless one. First, we need to fill up a questionnaire to declare our state of health. After that, we need to speak to a medical officer in charge to do a verbal health screening which is followed by a blood hemoglobin test. After that, I proceed to the blood donation room where the drawing blood procedure started.
It is not as scary as I thought. First, I was told to rest on the chair for 10 mins before the nurses attended to me. They checked my pressure, my veins to decide which hand to draw blood from. As it turned out, my veins are too fine and the junior nurse has problem handling my case. Luckily, a senior nurse took over my case. They took about 3 tubes to test for HIV, Syphilis and Hepatitis A, B and C. After 5-10 min, they managed to draw a packet of blood (about 450ml) from me. The nurse is very kind, after drawing the blood, she asked me to feel my own blood which is warm.
At that point, I really felt a sense of satisfaction. At least I fulfilled what I wanted for myself this year, to help people or to give back to society in whatever small ways that I could manage. Hopefully my one unit of blood will be able to save some folks.
After the whole procedure, I was told to rest for another 10 minutes before they bandaged my arm with a nice pink "Give Blood" bandage from HSA. My next appointment will be in April, just in time to give myself a meaningful Birthday present :)
The pink bandage which looked quite fashionable on my armHopefully more people will come forward and help to save lives.
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