Drama Queen

A few weeks ago there was an announcement made at church requesting blood donations. After Mass I signed both dh and myself up to donate. Neither of us had ever done it before but it seemed like a good idea.

Last Sunday the bloodmobile was stationed in front of the entrance. I immediately thought Damn, is that today? After Mass Dh got the children settled while I filled out my paperwork. His allotted time was 10 minutes after mine.
They called my name and I was taken inside the converted RV.

They put me in an itty bitty room and the lady (phlebotomist?) asked me a billion questions. Some were awfully strange "Have you ever had s.ex with a man who had se.x with a man who injected drugs through iV needles while visiting Africa?" What?! "Do you realize that you could transmit AID.S to another person through in.terco.urse even if you have had a negative A.IDS test?" When I answered "No" she looked at me like I had three heads, sighed heavily and rudely repeated the statement over and over until I answered "yes". M'kay Than she drilled me about my weight. One of the questions asked Do you weight more than 110 lbs? I circled yes. She looked me up and down and asked when I last weighed myself. Unsatisfied she asked what my exact weight was. I honestly had no idea. I lied and said 123. She sighed.

Then she pricked my finger for an iron test and took my BP. It was 72/48. It must be above 90 to be eligible to donate. The lady asked me to stand up/sit down, stand up/sit down and so on for a minute. She then retook the bp and it was 101/60 something. I passed.

I was then herded into the waiting area, crammed onto a bench with between two heavy set men and waited. and waited. and waited. Until they finally called my name. By this time Dh had completed his interview and was next in line behind me.

I was situated in a comfortable, reclining lounge chair and they began the process. I flinched and it hurt. The man started to laugh at me because he apparently used a pediatric needle. Whatever. The donation process itself was very easy.

Then they took out the needle. I'm not really sure what happened after that. I remember waking up with ice cold washcloths all over my face, neck, legs (I was wearing Capri's) and feet. There was a fan blowing on me and all three of the workers standing above me. I looked over at dh. He was shaking his head and rolling his eyes. I knew exactly what he was thinking "I can't take her anywhere". I felt like awful, absolutely awful. I thought I was going to get sick.

Eventually I began to feel a bit better but they refused to let me leave. For an entire hour I sat in the stinking blood mobile. If they had their way I'd still be sitting in the damn thing. I was advised, several times, to not donate in the future. Ya think?

The rest of the day sucked. We had planned on doing some Easter shopping and visiting the park. I was a mess. I ended up spending the entire day on the couch while dh and the kids played. I couldn't believe how bad I felt. It took two days before I was back to my old self. Dh on the other hand was perfectly fine. Go figure.