My Bloody Adventure
polycounter lvl 17
Not quite as exciting as the subject might make it sound, but I went and donated blood for the first time today. The whole experience was quite painless, and I feel pretty decent about it and wanted to encourage others to do the same. They say that if you donate blood you save an average of 3 lives, each time you donate. The whole thing happened totally randomly, skytrains were messed up today so I told a friend he could get a ride home with me after work. He wanted me to drop him at the clinic for him to donate, and I just ended up donating too. He had an appointment for it, I didn't.
Anyway I don't normally do any charity/fundraiser/humanitarion things, other than being tech support for far too many friends of friends, so this was nice for a change.
Most awesome thing:
I found out I have an uber high level heart. I filled the whole bag in just 4 minutes 39 seconds, a record of champions I'm told.
Funniest thing:
On the form I had to fill out, one of the questions was "Has your carreer ever involved handling monkeys or their fluids?".... I'm dead serious, the form actually asked if I've ever handled a monkey - please fill in the yes or no box.
Anyway I just felt like throwing this out there since donating blood isn't something I really considered before today. Feel free to share stories or make monkey handling jokes :P
Anyway I don't normally do any charity/fundraiser/humanitarion things, other than being tech support for far too many friends of friends, so this was nice for a change.
Most awesome thing:
I found out I have an uber high level heart. I filled the whole bag in just 4 minutes 39 seconds, a record of champions I'm told.
Funniest thing:
On the form I had to fill out, one of the questions was "Has your carreer ever involved handling monkeys or their fluids?".... I'm dead serious, the form actually asked if I've ever handled a monkey - please fill in the yes or no box.
Anyway I just felt like throwing this out there since donating blood isn't something I really considered before today. Feel free to share stories or make monkey handling jokes :P
Replies
I have a few stories to share, one of them quite erotic:
You get a small spungy thingy you have to massage in you hand to get the blood flowing and one time I massaged it really hard and when the nurse stuck the needle in I squirted blood about six meters across the room and the nurse was all Oh my!...
Second time I donated I hadn't had breakfast and when I got home at about 1 PM I slept for the remainder of the day.
Another day the receptionist looked at me funny in the check-in and after a minute or two she revealed to me that I tested positive for hepatitis C. Oh okay cool. Then she fetched a doctor and I had to wait for ten minutes. When the doctor finally came he said to me that a tested "possibly positive" which is a completely different thing. Turned out to be nothing, but no blood, besides a small test, was given that day.
Another day the receptionist looked at me funny in the check-in and after a minute or two she revealed to me that I tested positive for hepatitis C. Oh okay cool. Then she fetched a doctor and I had to wait for ten minutes. When the doctor finally came he said to me that a tested "possibly positive" which is a completely different thing. Turned out to be nothing, but no blood, besides a small test, was given that day.
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Ya they call that a false-positive here, the test erroneously determines you have hep-c or aids or some crazy shit and then the re-test proves that you don't. Here in Canada though, if you're a false-positive you're blacklisted and aren't allowed to donate ever again... Even though you didn't have anything, and it was an error on their part.
I was also surprised to learn that gay men can't give blood here. I wouldn't have thought they could actually get away with having that as a rule in this day and age. I would have expected to hear more controversy about this, but I guess nobody's rioting about not being allowed to donate.