Actually, I Don't Bleed Much At All

Friday, April 15 was the day.  I had finally worked up the courage to give blood, even if it was mostly to get a t-shirt.  The night before, I had a dream where I went to give blood, and it was really hard to get it out.  Then, the people wouldn't give me an "I Bleed Blue" t-shirt, and they wouldn't even give me a bandage for where the needle had been.  My real experience was better than that at least.

Kelley, Shelbi, and I had all decided that the Friday of reading days would be a good day when all of us would have time to donate blood.  We spent that whole morning drinking water and making many trips to the bathroom.  In the afternoon, we went to this little place near the Subway by our house where they will take your blood.  We all filled out the paperwork and stuff, and Shelbi got hooked up to the blood machine thing pretty quickly.  So Kelley and I were waiting while Shelbi was contentedly reading a magazine about Justin Bieber and getting her blood sucked out.  Then they called me back to do the finger prick thing, and I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.  Finally, they sat me in the chair and started getting ready to hook me up to the machine.  I was even more nervous.  By this time, Kelley was starting the process, but she came out from the finger prick room looking crestfallen.  Turned out, she couldn't donate blood because she has mad cow disease...  Not really, but she lived in Germany when she was younger and that has something to do with mad cow disease.

So, the girl finally marked my vein on my arm and stuck the needle in.  I couldn't look because I would have probably fainted or something, but Kelley was standing right next to me watching the whole time.  I thought everything was fine, but then the girl kept pushing the needle around.  Then she called another lady over, and that lady pushed the needle around some more.  Needless to say, it was not a pleasant feeling.  

Finally they told me what was going on.  Apparently, my blood had clotted somehow and had stopped coming out, so they told me I could try the other arm or just stop for today.  I decided to stop because by that time Shelbi was done and Kelley needed to go to work.  I looked at how much blood they had gotten from me though, and it did not even get halfway down the tube and was nowhere near the bag it was supposed to go into.  I probably lost about the equivalent of a nosebleed.  BUT, they still gave me an "I Bleed True Blue" t-shirt!!  And snacks.  The t-shirts were only large or extra-large, so I got an extra-large to wear for pajamas. And that is the story of how I almost gave blood but still got a t-shirt.