A number of years ago, a blood mobile visited our office building and I signed up to donate for my first time. I'm a wimp when it comes to needles or much of anything related to the medical field, so it was a big step.
Since then, I've tried to donate a number of times but was always deferred for a low hematocrit level. I've always had low iron but iron supplements had started giving me terrible migraines. I tried other dietary changes but was never up high enough to donate.
Until today.
I've been every day taking a multi-vitamin with iron and that with 3 meals of beans yesterday seemed to have done the trick. After getting an "Ok" on my minimum-but-legal level of hematocrit, the tech took my temperature. 99.8. Too high to donate! She took it again and it was lower. I was set to go.
I made it to the lounge chair and covered my face and twitched my feet, making the technician nervous. She wasn't the one getting her arm jabbed, so I don't know what she was talking about. After all of the prep work, she stuck the needle in and said, "Geeze! You squirted all over!" I thought she was joking but she wasn't. She had to change her lab coat and gloves and my shirt was stained.
That was just what I needed to feel comfortable.
1 comment:
all those years of wanted-to-but-never-got-to donated blood...no wonder you burst. High praise, Hema-woman!
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