Blood Drive

Blood, erythrocytes, leucocytes , platelets and plasma... the very thing which keeps us going.
Haha got blood drive in NJC today and well oh well i decided to sign up. Hmmmm fadhli and ziping also signed up, but they failed the medical, so poor old me had to do alone. but luckily they were there for morale support lol.

Hmmmm... so this is the episode:
We went to collect the form thingy to fill up b4 we could donate any blood. The whole list was filled with alot of no answers lol. I think anyone with a yes answer for those *ahem* stuff won't dare to donate in school anyways lol. So after the signing up went to the waiting queque for the doc...

I went up to the doctor... he cleared me pretty fast. I went to the next station which was the testing of your blood iron level. Just before going up this girl fainted. I went 'oh shit oh shit' in my head. Doubts were beginning to knock at my head. Then the lady called me up, she pricked my middle finger and squeezed a dropper of blood out of it. I heard from zp this was the most pain she felt the last time she donated. So well, this must be good... or so i thought. I watched the blood globule sink down the copper sulphate solution, this must be it, time to donate.

I went over to the blood-sucking station after I was cleared. I called over to Jing Wei and found out she couldn't donate because they couldn't find her vein. Lucky or thought. i walked around the recliners until a lady told me to lie down in a chair. Lying down, this nurse came to me. She asked the usual questions. No drugs in the past 3 day? Feeling well? etc...

After that, she walked over and got the blood bags thing. then i asked her about the anaeshetic and stuff and she replied. Now thinking about it, should have noticed that she was rather nervous. She squeezed the blood pressure meter and ask me to squeeze a rubber ball so she can locate my vein. Locating it she rubbed the area with some yellow solution before getting the anaesthetic.

The nurse washed her hands with some sanitizer liquid before opening the sealed bag containing the needle and anaesthetic. she removed the rubber protecting layer before sticking the needle into a bottle contaning the anaesthetic. As she drew it, i noticed some air bubbles getting trapped inside the syringe. Before i knew it, she placed the needle on my skin, i closed my eye before feeling the prick of my skin, as she injected it in, i felt a sharp sting of the luquid penetrating.

I immediately asked zp and fadhli whether they saw air bubbles. They also saw it. Then zp had to remind me about zach lim's description of a painful death by injecting an air bubble into your blood stream. The little air bubble would cause massive haemorrhages to ur blood passages.... ouch. Hmmmm.... luckily i'm still here typing haha!

The nurse now removed the rubber covering of the blood pack needle. and boy was the needle huge... okay i may be exagerating but to me i say it is huge. Probably about the diameter of abot 0.3/4 cm? I closed my eyes. She stuck the damn needle into my arm. I felt some movement in my skin. i open my eye to see the needle being lodged into my arm. Thank God for anaesthetic. The only thing was that... no blood was flowing into the tube, nothing zip. I think i was stunned or something. The nurse walked to some other blood bank lady and she walked over to me. she gripped the needle and used it to lift my skin up about 2 cm? Not sure but it was like my skinned was gonna get ripped and blood ooze out. After shifting the needle, she shifted the angle of the needle and shoved it deeper down into my flesh. Pretty graphic right? But it didn't feel a thing. honest. After that, blood started oozing out into the bag rather fast.

All was well until about 15 minutes into the donation where my blood sorta stopped flowing as it sorta clotted up. I think it may have been due to the n00b nurse not tightening the blood pressure band around my arm. Anyways. A man walked up and re-adjusted the band. He told me to squeeze the rubber ball. But still to no avail. As the time wore on to about 20 minutes, i began to feel the needle pierced into the cavern or my arm. Each time i squeezed the rubber ball the feeling of the needle lodged inside began feeling stronger.

Close to 30 minutes, my arm was feeling real cold really really cold. If that was what people dying felt like, i sure was feeling it in my left arm. My arm was going into shock The personnel kept asking me whether i was feeling fine. Or course i was fine but i knew definitely that all was not well. The man came over and tried to adjust the needle, but this time surely i knew i the anaesthetic was wearing out i felt a sting. I must have flinched or something because he asked whether i was feeling pain. I told him ya and he adjusted the needle once again. If you ask me, it was like a scavanging rat in my flesh, biting and gnawing trying to get its way through. Bloody crap it hurt! At this point he decided it was enough and he ended the thing. as he tried to disloge the needle out of my arm, I winced once more in pain. I kept my eyes closed until i heard fadhli's voice, the needle is out.

I opened my eyes to see him drawing remnents of my blood left in the tube into testubes. He apllied some dressing and asked me to apply pressure. He then placed an ice pack atop the afflicted area. resting and crapping for about 10 more minutes he removed the ice pack and applied hirudoid cream to the area. He dressed it up in this purple bandage (Go aerius!!!!) and i went over to the refreshments area to get my milo and biscuit... my 'odeal' was over.

Thnx to XL, fadhli and ZP for supporting me lol. Couldn't have done it without your morale support.. though fadhli u should't have mentioned about someone dying by bleeding to death... Yea lol i'm the minority who had a not so sucessful blood donation lol... well maybe it'll be better next year!