There was a local blood drive opportunity where they were begging for donors. In the past I've always had the excuse of nursing or being pregnant as a reason not to donate--in truth I was nervous to try because I know both my mom and older sister have issues with fainting. But I have always done just fine having my blood drawn during pregnancies that I decided to man up and give it a try. When I arrived for my appointed time, I saw other donors lying down with a huge bag of their blood rocking in a machine next to the donor. That made my stomach queasy. I was kind of hoping as I went through the preliminary screening process that I wouldn't qualify as one of my friends did. Then I would have an easy out. But all went smoothly as they checked that I was a suitable donor. Matt was at a baseball scrimmage with Caleb so I had the younger 3 boys with me. A friend offered to take my boys home to her house--having never donated before I didn't realize it was a semi-long process. Austin decided to go home with her, but Carter and Bryson were excited and curious about it all because they knew I was nervous so they opted to stay.
A nurse got me set up and told me it would take 5-10 minutes. Despite my nerves, everything went well! I squeezed my the stress ball, looked at my phone, and when the nurse came over after about 6 minutes, I was so proud that I had done it! My blood saved 3 lives! Except that the nurse wasn't coming to take everything off and tell me I was done as I had assumed. She said my blood had slowed down (even though I had been squeezing my stress ball the whole time!) and that instead she needed to stick the needle in further. That was the beginning of the end. Pushing the needle in further hurt and started the queasiness. It soon felt like a ton of tiny spiders were crawling up my body. I alerted the nurse that I didn't feel very well, and then all went black.
Some unknown amount of time later, someone was annoyingly waking me up out of the best deep sleep. As I came to, two nurses were fanning me, putting ice packs on me, and asking me if I knew where I was right now. They also asked me what I had had to eat that day. My answer of french toast for breakfast and roasted veggies for lunch didn't make them very happy, and they said that's the reason I had fainted. I decided not to mention that I had run 10 miles that morning as well.
They asked me to continue squeezing the stress ball to finish up, which surprised me. A few minutes later, they pulled the needle out. I think I was able to donate enough blood? By that point, I had called Matt. Caleb's scrimmage was over and he rushed over to take the kids home for Caleb to babysit and then came back so he could drive me home. They had to keep checking my vitals to make sure everything was stable enough for me to go home. I felt horrible because I was the last appointment of the day, so they were all cleaned up and ready to be done for the day except waiting on me. I was grateful to finally get home, and Matt took care of the kids so I could take a late afternoon nap. I felt much better when I woke up and less shaky after a good dinner. Giving blood is not something I anticipate doing again in the future. :-/
