Giving blood

Today was a day of databases, which turned my brain to mush. Much up-to-dateness has been achieved, and a few potential problems have been spotted before they noticed that they could cause any difficulties. Alas, it turned my brain to mush. I think I may have been repeating myself to everyone.

After work, I went to give blood. I do not have a good record with this - my blood seems to be quite happy within me, and only comes out with great reluctance. Apparently I have crap veins.*

Last time I went (in November), neither myself nor HWSNBN managed to give a whole bag of blood (between 410 and 470 ml). This is very unusual for him - his blood is normally more than happy to exit his body via the hole in his generously-proportioned veins. Oh yeah - if you're squeamish, you probably shouldn't have read that. Sorry. There may be more ahead, but I haven't yet decided. But you should have been prepared, you know - it's not as though the title didn't warn you. You should read blogs responsibly.

Anyway, having been told in the past that my right arm might be more successful (after a very slow donation from the left one - apparently it's often easier from the dominant arm), I tried again with it. Alas, the nurse was unable to find any veins in it at all. Trying again with the left arm, a vein was located (the usual one - I shall not be trying again with the right arm).

This time, I managed to donate a whole bag within the time limit. Did you know they had a time limit? It's about 15 minutes. Such are my veins that I have always known. Lucky me.

Having given blood, I managed not to faint** and made it home. HWSNBN is now getting a takeaway (although he has been gone a long time - I hope nothing has happened to him. He could have eaten both of our meals within that time. No, here he is. Time to go!). Dinner time!




*I am paraphrasing - they didn't actually say this to me.

**This only happened once, when they took a very long time making tea for me. This was bad. I wanted her to make it quickly so that I could sit down, but she wasn't getting my telepathic signals. Grr. Did you know that once you have fainted once, you are only allowed orange juice after donating, and not tea or coffee? Also, when gluten intolerant, biscuits are out of the question. This makes it less fun.