Day 22 - Bruises

I give blood as regularly as possible. I've got something special that preemie-cancer babies need. So any blood that I give goes straight to them for them. It makes me feel particularly great! Yes great! Last year the Red Cross forwarded an email to me from a very thankful family who described how their child was sick and was saved due to the blood she received. The letter was addressed to the Red Cross with a request to pass it along to the donor. They did and I completely lost it sitting at my desk. Not only did it make my day; but it got me on the bandwagon of recruiting others to donate too.

Now for the topic of this post. This past week I had an appointment with the Red Cross. They conveniently come to work and spend 1 1/2 days there getting tons of blood from us. It had been a slow donation time due to people generally not feeling well, and the Red Cross will advise you NOT to give blood unless you are feeling 100%. I was feeling fine - so I decided to go ahead and donate.

Then it all started to go downhill...making the story short, after they stuck the needle in I completely stopped bleeding. A slight trickle would come out, that was all. Anyone family with the next procedure will know what I am talking about - once you stop bleeding a simple way to restart the bleeding is to move the needle around within the vein until it starts back up. Typically this is not pain-free and truly my only deterrent to giving blood. this time it did not hurt. Wow this is great I said to myself, seemingly unaware that this odd fact probably meant that something else was going on.

It appears that the nurse went in one side of my vein and right out the other. I've got bruises where the needle went in, and then all the way on the other side of my arm. What the hell! Hopefully the next donation won't be as painful or as colorful.