Saving A Life

I saved someone's life today by donating blood to the Red Cross at the blood drive on campus. It was pretty cool and feel really good to be possibly saving someone's life. It was really easy to do and the whole process only took about an hour. First you get there and have to read a bunch of stuff to make sure you can give blood. Then someone asks you a bunch of questions to make sure you don't have AIDS or something else that would make giving blood dangerous. They also took a small blood sample to check my hemoglobin which was 13.0, which was over the 12.5 limit, but a little low for males my age. Basically they want to make sure you have high enough levels, so you can safely give up a pint of blood which is about a tenth of your total blood volume. I think I might start taking iron supplements for awhile to make sure I have enough iron to replace all my lost red blood cells. Apparently it can take up to two months to fully replenish all the red blood cells which is amazing considering the body makes 2.4 million red cells per second.  I'm hoping the donation won't affect my training too much. Luckily, I won't be training too hard for at least a month. I've always wanted to give blood and figured Spring was the best time. I asked Ruff and he said it wasn't a bad idea. We'll see tomorrow how I feel when I go running.

A nice guy named James sat me down in a lounge chair and had me wait while he finished up another patient. First, we were going to use my left arm but switched to the right as it had a bigger vein. He had me squeeze ball to pump up the vein then plunged the needle in. Blood sort of squirted out and it hurt quite a bit when he put the needle in. Then I had to squeeze the ball every five seconds help the blood flow. Within five minutes the bag was full of blood and I was free to go. They told me to make sure I drink plenty of fluids and that I shouldn't exercise for a day. I've already pissed like four times in the past few hours so I should be fine. I did feel a little light headed afterwards, but the whole process was a lot less painful and scary than I thought it would be. Giving blood is really important, so if you get the opportunity to do so, you should take it. Remember you could be saving someone's life!

      

Here's my arm after taking the bandage off and washing it. Only a little mark and no bruising. No big deal!

DAVEY