Blood Donation Scare

Well, I need to quit my game from time to time to allow the animals to hear. Apparently if you just stare at them they'll never heal. :~( Stupid design of game. So I thought I'd blog some. Perhaps it would not be too bad of an idea to litter my blog will some other entries apart from my game score, of which BM has been a very royal reader. ^_^

The first sign I saw today as I got out of the elevator on the floor I work on was a big sign that says "walk in blood drive." So I thought to myself, "why not?" It's only been 10 years since I last donated blood -- because of some medical conditions back then, I was unable to donate blood for a few years. :~( And since work was slow and I was merely sitting there feeding my animals, I thought perhaps I should go save a life instead. Hahahahaha.

So I went and gave blood. And they made me sit around and forced me to drink fluids and tried to push cookies on me and I thought that was just silly and didn't want the cookie to ruin my appetite as it was approaching my lunch hour.

I went to lunch about 20 minutes after I finished donating blood. It was a good day and I was in a good mood so I skipped and hopped to the elevator. And as luck would have it, I ran into green lights after green lights at each crosswalk so I ran through two only to stop at the third and most lenghty one.

As soon as I stood still at the third light I knew I had done something horribly wrong -- the running, what was I thinking? I started getting a little light headed. Not very severe, but enough to know that I was in trouble. And probably what they called "tightness of chest," I was gasping and my chest hurt. Luckily I didn't have to wait long, the light changed and I crossed the street and made it to the restaurant that I was heading to, the entire time feeling more and more dizzy. I was seated right away. I ordered without looking at the menu and begged for water.

My symptoms got only worse after I've entered the restaurant. I could only see intermittenly. The other times I was seeing white. The noises around me sounded from very far away. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw that about four tables from me sat four women in scrubs. I figured they must be nurses or hospital workers of sort. I debated about going up to them and asking them what I could do to make myself feel better, but I was intimidated. I've read it somewhere (and I don't mean you, BM) that doctors don't like being asked doctor questions when they are not at work playing doctors, (perhaps if those doctors would stop identifying themselves as doctors when they are not at work, that wouldn't be an issue any more, huh?). As I was formulating my approach to the nurses in my head it became clear to me that I wouldn't even be able to take the 10 steps necessary to get to them. If I so much as to try to get up on my feet, I'd probably collaspe.

I must have looked pale or something, the waiter who normally takes 10 minutes or more to bring me my water, if at all, brought it to me right away, along with the soup. I downed half a glass of water and even though I felt nauseated, I knew I wouldn't be able to make it out of the restaurant vertically if I don't have some food. I just don't know how long it'll take my body to absorb whatever I was about to eat. After the water, I started forcing myself to drink the soup, which tasted different than normal.

I thought about calling my coworker, I'd feel better if someone could walk back with me after I ate, but I don't have anyone's number. In retrospect, I have the blood bank's hotline number in my back pocket, but it's hard to think of these things when you were literally not seeing straight. Luckily as my body started absorbing the fluid, and the sitting down probably helped also, my symptoms started to go away as I eat.

After this whole incident, I sure hope my blood is going to someone WORTHWHILE. (I'm not a doctor, I can freely comment that some lives are more valuable than others.) I'd be so pissed (not that I'd find out one way or another) if my blood ended up being used by some reckless or drunk driver with a deathwish, worse so if he had already killed a few innocent. No, I do not believe people like that deserve to live and nothing shall stand in between a man and his deathwish.