Tonight I donated blood for the 25th time. Wahoo.

I was kind of dreading going in tonight. My back was sore, I have been really tired lately, and I was a little hungry since I hadn’t eaten yet. That all changed when I foundout it was my 25th though.

It is a fun place to go for me. Much of the staff recognizes me, so we can joke around. I can zip through most of the questions since nothing has changed, and I read fast.

Once in the chair I was feeling great. The chairs they have are extremely comfortable. Sometimes I have to remind myself to stay awake.

When the donation was all over and done I was on to the juice and cookies. Yum. Slap on my sticker, and I was on my way.

I feel really good about myself everytime I donate blood. It really is something that I enjoy doing, and I know it benefits society. There are so many charities out there right now gathering funds, and it makes me sad that I can’t donate to help out. Sox and I are working real hard on paying off our debt, so anything extra we have generally goes towards that. Besides, you never know how much of a donation to a charity goes to helping versus helping run the charity.

Blood helps anyone that needs it. It is what I do to help society.

I was left feeling a little drained the other night. Suede and I had our blood donation Weds night, and as usual it went smoothly. No complications of any sort. The one thing that is a pain now, was that since our Mexico trip, there is one question that we have to answer yes too, and not the standard no. When they see this yes answer, they have to ask a few more questions to make sure our blood is safe to use.

All in all I still enjoy giving blood. It is a (relatively) painless way to help society, and doesn’t involve an outlay of cash. On that note I have decided that I will not ever donate money to charities that cold-call me. I have donated to one in the past (lets call them CharityX), but then I noticed one time when they called that I had already donated to them recently. When I asked CharityX when my last donation was, they were able to quote me the exact date. That just sat wrong with me. It felt like they waited long enough for me to forget I already gave to them this year, then tried to hit me up again.

Back to the topic at hand. Blood donation good. Tele-solicitors bad.

Mmmm, pie!??! Last night Suede and I donated blood again. Blood donation 23 for me! It was a little more time consuming this time due to our recent travels to Mexico (and the accompanying vaccination we got). In the end we got through, donated our blood, then moved on to the cookie table where the volunteers were serving pie! I had never seen this before but some of the local businesses sometimes donate food for the donaters. The volunteer told us how the Subway close by once donated sub sandwiches all night long. Very cool.

After our recuperation period, we went out for dinner to Yoshi Sushi.

Crazy busy night. Sue and I had blood donation appointments tonight right after work, then I had a photo club meeting right after that.

The donation went fine as usual for me, though I noticed some of their procedures have changed a little bit. I do really appreciate the staff at the clinic. They are all extremely friendly and inviting. It is a real treat to come in for an appointment and have some of them remember me from previous visits. Sue on the other hand couldn’t donate due to a low iron level. 🙁

The photo club was a bit of a bust for me tonight. I was pretty tired all day long today, and it all caught up to me then. I gave up trying to find pictures part way through and went home early. *sigh* I am not sure what that was all about, but I really wasn’t feeling very creative. Perhaps next time will be better.

Today was the day for my latest blood donation. Number 21 for me (I think). It is quite neat to go to the clinic and have the staff recognize me. Again, no problems for me, but one nurse did remark on my good blood pressure (120/80).

Be nice to me, I gave blood today.

Yup, you guessed it, today was my latest blood donation.

It went smooth as silk. I walked in, gave my name at the front desk, sat down at the person who checks iron level, walked to the kiosk and filled out my 13 questions. After the questions I went right in to see the nurse about the blunt and personal questions (and to check BP and temp). After that I was right on a bed.

As usual I filled the bag quickly (6 minutes). After the 5 minutes of bandage holding I was on to the cookies and juice! Yum! It takes more time to do the paperwork than it does to donate.

I think that makes 18 for me so far.

Tuesday was my latest blood donation. All went well as usual for me, but one guy was pretty slow. When I walked in I could see a guy on one of the beds donating. I signed in, went through the preliminary iron check, checked the answers to my 13 questions, went and talked to a nurse, had my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature taken, donated, then went to eat cookies and drink juice, all before the guy I saw when I walked in, finished his donation! For some reason his blood just wasn’t flowing as fast as it should have been.

I am closing in on 20 donations now. When you can only donate ever 56 days, that means I have been donating (fairly) regularly for close to 3 years now. I am pretty happy with that, and I hope I can keep going for a while. The only wrench in that plan is that in the next couple years I want to get a tattoo, and once I do that I have to wait a year before I can donate again. Maybe I will be able to support Canadian Blood Services some other way in that time period.