Posts Under Life Category

Last year, I was around when there was a blood drive here in New Zealand and Josh and I were able to give blood. It was a fun and positive experience despite not being able to find a vein very easily in my arm and all the paperwork that I had to do being that I was from overseas and didn’t have a blood donor card.

Well, this time I was already off to a better start. I now had my own blood donor card which skips half the paperwork and the fuss and I also decided that I was going to drink loads of water before I went. I drank 2 and a half liters of water (that’s about 10 8oz glasses of water). Unfortunately, I didn’t think through the fact that I’d probably have to use the toilet quite frequently which I did. I’d rather have to run to the toilet a bunch of times instead of have someone play with the needle in my arm, though. Just because I’m giving blood doesn’t mean I enjoy having needles in my arm.

Being that it was my second donation, I earned a keychain that says my blood type on it and that I was a donor. Josh earned a t-shirt since he has donated over 10 times. Josh was upset because he is sure that he has donated way more times than 10 – he thinks he’s up to nearly 20 times. The lady said that this was quite possible since they had a problem with their databases a couple years ago and a bunch of people lost all their donation counts. I still think it’s nice that he donated 10 times and got a t-shirt, though!

When I finally got stuck with the needle, my blood actually squirted all over my arm and even onto my clothes. The nurse apologized but I was almost happy because I told her how much water I drank since I had so many problems last time so I was excited that my blood pressure was so high even if I did get a drop or two of blood on my clothes.

My excitement was short lived, though. The machine started beeping a couple minutes in to say that the pressure wasn’t good enough. Every couple minutes the lady was coming over trying to adjust the needle in my arm (which started to HURT – just leave the needle alone please, lady). In the end I was almost done so she just let the machine beep all the way until the end which meant my blood was draining slowly and the whole process was taking WAY longer than it should. It was very frustrating. Josh was done way before me and we started at the same time! He just got to eat more mints and cookies than me!

I guess it’s a small price to pay to be able to give some blood and help someone. They told me that this blood is going to be headed to Christchurch and will be there by tomorrow.

Josh and I went to get meat pies afterward (when there’s an excuse for meat pies, Josh always finds it) and we “argued” with each other about whose blood was better. Josh was joking that his blood is better since it’s more rare and only 2% of the population have B- blood. Mine is A+ which is the second most common blood type after O+. My little retort was that since more people have my blood type, it is more in need and more people need it so mine is the better blood! In the end we know that it it all important because even though 2% of the population may need his type of blood, only 2% of the donations will probably be that type and the same thing with mine so that it all evens out and works so long as a good portion of the population donates. So as long as we all always donate blood, we’re good. We have the weirdest conversations, don’t we?

When was the last time you donated blood? I’m going to try and do it more frequently now that I am able to do so here! I need to get up to 10 donations to get my t-shirt too!