Donating Blood
Posted January 6th, 2012 @ 06:24pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I donated blood today. When I called to see if they were busy, the girl answered by telling me that "we are pretty dead."
I first had to show my ID. I answered a questionnaire, which asked me if I'd had sex with anyone who was paid in "cash, drugs, or _____" (I forget the third thing - I know it wasn't food stamps :-D), among other things. My finger was pricked for iron testing. When that passed, the nurse gave me a sticker sheet with two bar codes. Next to one was "use my blood" and next to the other "don't use my blood." She said "choose one, put it in this box here on the form, and throw the sticker sheet out. Don't ask me why." I obliged, except for not asking her why. She didn't tell me.
Then, I was led back to the room. I was given a Coke "because it was my first time" and assumed I should try to drink it before she drew blood. So I did, and she was surprised that I was done already. 😛 Incidentally, it was one of those white cans of Coke that people mistook for Diet Coke. I admit I thought for a second it was Diet too, as I'd never seen one of these cans in person.
After making me turn away (she said people will faint, throw up, or scream and run away) I asked how long it would take. She said 5-15 minutes. When I was done in about three minutes, she said that was the fastest she'd ever seen. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I waited for ten minutes to make sure I wouldn't faint or something, ate some snacks and drank some juice, and walked out.
I was surprised to see that men could not donate blood at all if you'd had sexual contact with another man since 1977. I know that early on AIDS/HIV rates were high among gay men, but is that still the case? Or are we just applying 1983 thinking to 2011? Can't they test the blood of a gay man just the same as they'll test my blood? At any rate, Britain lifted the ban in 2011, so perhaps the U.S. is not far behind. There are a few other articles out there on the topic, but it interests me enough to skim and link to one, and write this paragraph, but no more than that. 🙂
Donate Life
Posted 07 Jan 2012 at 9:12pm #
Being that I'm O+, the Red Cross bothers me if I don't donate every 8 weeks. I have an item in omnifocus that reminds me to schedule a new blood donation every 8 weeks. The Red Cross of MI is constantly running incentives to get people to donate. In the past year or two, we've received Red Wings tickets, Cedar Point tickets, $25 credit towards our energy bills, etc.
Posted 08 Jan 2012 at 10:18am #
Carey and I were going to donate blood a week or two ago, but we saw a tweet that they were super busy because they were giving out $15 gas cards.
If I donate blood in the future it won't be to get incentives. It'll be because it's the right thing to do. And that's not even entirely because I'm altruistic - I don't want to wait 90 minutes to give blood just for $15 in gas (or whatever). Know what I mean? 🙂
My dad's O something. My mom is A- IIRC. So I may be O as well, but I think I'm probably A. I don't think I'll donate too frequently simply because I'm planning to do more running and though I'm not competitive yet and may never be really competitive, I don't know that decreased performance for a few weeks is in the cards.
Then again, I do like the snacks afterwards. 😉
Posted 15 Jan 2012 at 12:34am #
My company hosted a blood drive a couple months back and offered a very nice incentive- 4 hours of leave (and a special charge code for the donation itself). I usually decline incentives (well, except for the cookies and juice, those are for medical purposes, yea, medical) but I jumped on that one.
AB+ here. Nobody wants my blood. They just want my plasma and platelets. 🙂