On Monday November 17 during second hour, I went down to the aux gym to donate blood for the first time. When I decided to sign up to donate blood I knew that I was able to help people who really needed my blood in order to live. What I didn’t know was how nerve wrecking it would be in the beginning, and how exhausted I would feel at the end.
When I got to the gym, a water bottle was given to every person who came to donate blood so that they wouldn’t be dehydrated. They also gave me a booklet to read to know how and why this can save people’s lives, to tell if your blood is good or not, and it gives information about blood donations. Reading this made me even more nervous than I was before. Questions were asked and answered, my blood was tested and it was a relief to hear that I was able to donate blood.
While my blood was being tested another student was also being questioned by a different worker, but was having the same feelings as me, my friend Sally Putrus ‘16. “I was really scared and I thought that my blood isn’t going to be good enough and that when the test results come back, I would not be able to donate again because my blood was bad and ruin my future life,” Sally explained.
At the end I didn’t really think that I would be so tired, the workers told me to eat and drink a lot of water and juice to help me feel better. I liked that. Also that after resting for 15 minutes there were other students there to help us get to class, I like this idea this made me felt safe just in case if anything were to happen to me in the hallway. It was really tiring at the end of it all, it would take one to two days to recover from the blood loss. This made it a bit hard to pay attention in class which was what I didn’t like. Although I was hearing what the teachers were saying in one ear, the words just wouldn’t stick in my head.
Even though I felt this way not all donors felt the same as I did. “I felt normal and okay and really good about myself after. Then I went on to thinking about some students who wouldn’t even be able to go to school because of dangerous things depending on the country they are in,” Sally said.
I didn’t expect to know what was going to happen after donating blood for the first time, but it was a good experience. Things went differently from how I had imagine it would go, I never expected for other students to take me to class and to answer so many questions.
People who are planning to donating blood should follow the advice given to them. “My advice to future blood donors is to not wear anything heavy, wear a t-shirt, eat a really good breakfast or lunch, stay relax throughout the process and have a positive attitude,” Sally said. For anyone who wants to donate blood this will be a good experience and offer an opportunity to save another person’s life.
No responses yet