Member Advice on Blood Donation

How To Save A Life!

For a couple of days now I have been struggling to find something to review, I didn’t really want to do another Top 10... review, and I really didn’t want to go back to my comfort zone and do another music review. Today (Monday) as always I have a day off from college and I usually spend the day catching up with my homework or doing what most teenagers enjoy doing most, absolutely nothing.

Today ...
...ready and take the long walk out to the car and go to the next village and do something amazing, I gave blood. This is my third time giving blood now, as soon as I turned 17 back in July of last year I immediately knew that I wanted to give blood now that I was eligible. A lot of my mates won’t set foot near the centre because they think even driving me to the centre means they are in danger of the needles or the blood or something like that, but ... more

How To Save A Life!

For a couple of days now I have been struggling to find something to review, I didn’t really want to do another Top 10... review, and I really didn’t want to go back to my comfort zone and do another music review. Today (Monday) as always I have a day off from college and I usually spend the day catching up with my homework or doing what most teenagers enjoy doing most, absolutely nothing.

Today however, I had to wake up early (before noon), get ready and take the long walk out to the car and go to the next village and do something amazing, I gave blood. This is my third time giving blood now, as soon as I turned 17 back in July of last year I immediately knew that I wanted to give blood now that I was eligible. A lot of my mates won’t set foot near the centre because they think even driving me to the centre means they are in danger of the needles or the blood or something like that, but I do know a lot of friends who have given blood since turning 17 and I know a lot of us will carry on doing it, it is a great feeling that you are saving a life and I think that a lot more could be done by the National Blood Service to get more blood, see my Idea near the bottom of the review. Here you go, enjoy the review:

History of Giving Blood

It was only in 1900 that they discovered that everyone’s blood was different, that there were different types of blood however it was not until after the Second World War that the National Blood Service was set up to collect and provide blood supplies.

There are 4 main types of blood, O, A, B and AB, O is the most common and it is in the most demand, whereas only a small portion of the population are AB pos or negative.

Another shocking fact was that I dare you to guess how much of the population give blood two/three times a year... 4%, that is 2.1 donations or so and that only comes to 4% of the population giving blood two/three times a year.

Why Should You Give Blood?

I’m sure most of you know why people give blood; your donation is saving another person’s life. The way I always look at it is, if I had a bad accident and needed a transfusion I would hope that enough people had donated so that they could give me this transfusion, if you are a rare blood type, then you will be doing an even bigger of a job, as your blood would save someone’s life who may die without your donation.

My Reason

The reason I wanted to give blood is kind of stupid, but it was important to me. As most of you know, I suffered from an illness for quite a few years, and in the past 7/8 years I have had at least over 2 dozen blood tests. So when my illness went away, I wanted to give up my blood again, but this time I wanted it to mean something, I didn’t want some lab techy looking at my blood and as usual not finding anything, I wanted to do something that would hopefully help someone.

Where to Do It?

If you have never donated before, probably the most important thing to do is to find out where you can donate. If you use this link below, it’ll take you straight to the web page and it’ll help you find your nearest centre. I was actually amazed that the village I live in doesn’t hold its own blood donor centre, because it is one of the most well known and popular villages around, and it has one of the largest village halls I know. However, they chose to set up the centre about a mile/2 miles away from my home.

Who Is Able To Give Blood?

Any one between the ages of 17-60 can give blood, it’s important that you are healthy as well, there are things that constrict you giving blood, these are things like the following:

• Pregnancy
• Tattoo
• Piercings
• Dental Work
• Hepatitis
• Infections

How Often Do You Give Blood?

You give blood about 3 times a year, the dates usually fall in March/April, June/August, and November/December, this is every 16 weeks or so and it is imperative that you don’t give more than this because it does take a long time for the components within your blood to replicate.

Newbie’s

Like I said earlier, I saw a 17/18 year old lad today with tears in his eyes at the thought of losing his blood; however it is not that bad. My problems just happen because I’m an awkward cow and my whole family seems to be as well, it is very likely that you’ll sail through it and the only pain you’ll feel is the needle going in and then out again. That’s it. Some people say that the most painful part of the entire procedure is when they test your Iron levels which are a pin prick on your finger so you really do not have a lot to worry about. These are some of the things that would make me question whether you should donate or not:

1) Fear Of Needles- It takes 10 minutes minimum to take your blood; you have to sit with a needle in your arm for that length of time, so if you don’t like needles then stay away.

2) Can’t Stand The Sight Of Blood- You are in a room with other people who are being ‘drained’ and you do see their blood on the trolley, if you don’t like the sight of blood then don’t do it, or wear a blindfold.

Enrolling

With this link you are able to enrol to become a blood donor, it really doesn’t take you long at all, it’s quick and painless and you are then able to save lives. You don’t have to enrol on the net, you are also able to just turn up at the centre and they’ll take all of your details there like I did.

https://secure.blood.co.uk/enrol.asp

My Experience

Like I said before this is my third time giving blood, my family seems to have a history of problems giving blood, and I am no exception, and each time I have faced a problem, however it has never put me off giving blood.

Here I’ll go through what they will do with you and then I’ll talk a bit more about my experience.

The Questions

The one thing that I found quite annoying about giving blood is the questions that you have to answer, I know it’s a necessary though and I was actually shocked, but pleasantly so when I found a letter from the Blood Donor people, giving me the form to fill in at home before I went. This cut off so much time from the actual session, and this was the first time that I hadn’t been on any medication or anything like that, so it went very smoothly.

It is very important to answer the questions honestly, even if you have a sniffle they want to know, and if you are on any tablets or anything, it’s a smart idea to write down the name, just so they can be sure that you’re still eligible to give blood.

The Consultation

Once you have answered the questions they’ll take you into a private consultation, if you’ve ever had an injection at school or anything like that it does feel a bit like that. They’ll run through all of the questions and query anything that you have ticked yes, and then they’ll check your iron levels. This is a little pin prick on your middle finger and barely takes a second to do and is no problem. If everything is alright they’ll then take you to a bed. You get to choose which arm you want to give blood from, they recommend not to choose your writing hand though.

Something that shocked me was the fact that if you have a tattoo you might have problems giving blood, this is the same with ear or body piercings as well, pretty much if a needle enters your skin, you have to tell them and they’ll do an additional test.

The Scary Part- Giving Blood

I actually saw a young man today on his first time giving blood with tears in his eyes before the needle even went in, and then when he came out to great his mates, he was all cocky saying it was alright. I was in stitches seeing him like this, but it seriously is alright.

They’ll lie you on the bed and then they’ll check for a vain. They’ll clean the area of the arm and then in goes the needle. Of course a lot more goes into this from the nurse’s point of view but from my point of view this is what happens. Apparently the average time of a donation is 10 minutes, all I can say is I wish. Mine feels like hours because the blood in me just doesn’t wanna come out.

Once you are done, they’ll take out the needle, which seems to be one of the worst parts for me for some reason, I’m fine with the needle going in, but I feel quite ill when it’s pulled out. They’ll make sure you’re alright and then they’ll send you into a separate room where there are coffee/juice and cookies available for you. This is very important; you must have something to eat/drink after the donation.

Amount of Blood Given

They’ll take about 470ml out of your body which may sound like a lot but it’s just under a pint, mine today went a bit wrong and they were only able to get about 400ml out of my body however they seemed to be happy with that.

After Giving Blood

Once you’ve given blood then they usually make sure you go the refreshments area and getting sugar into your body to stop you feeling faint, it’s a good idea to do this, it gives your body time to relax and if any problems arise after giving blood (it does happen) then you are in the right hands and they’ll deal with you and make sure that you’re fine to go home. They recommend that you do not do any heavy lifting; they’re fine with you going back to work, however they make sure you know the consequences if you are doing heavy lifting in the next 24 hours. Once you are done with all of that, then you plod on your way to wherever you have to do with a plaster on your middle finger and a very handsome plaster on your arm which shouldn’t be removed for 8 hours I believe or something along those lines.

Problems with Donating Blood

Here is where it comes to my experience with giving blood, I should say that I have never ever had a problem with needles before; I was always the one to pin my mates down at school when they were scared of the needles with the vaccinations. My first time wasn’t too bad, I felt a bit light headed and my arm really ached the rest of the day but other than that I was fine.

The second time went a bit different, I had pins and needles running up and down my arm, more specifically in my fingers, however I sat up and nearly passed out. Not only did I have all that but they really struggled to get blood out of me, it seems it likes my body so much that it just wouldn’t come out. The nurses dealt with me brilliantly and they sent me home within the hour, but I was expecting it to go alright on my third donation and it didn’t...

Of course it didn’t go alright, I found myself in a lot of pain due to the fact the needle they were using hit a nerve and I was in agony so much so every time they moved the needle to get it away from the nerve it hurt even more. I only managed to get 400ml out of my body which is enough but not good enough. I will not let this stop me however; I just have to warn them that they’ve got a hard time getting blood out of me.

You really do need to make sure that you keep it easy after your donation, no real exercise (another great excuse for me), the most common side effect has to be the bruising, I barely get anything, but other members of my family get ugly bruises which last for ages, I just don’t bruise very easily at all. The thing I find a lot of the time is the discomfort you feel for the rest of the day with the plaster on, I feel like pulling it off straight away but I leave it on the advised time. This annoys the hell out of me, because of course I spend the day picking at the plaster.

The Blood

About Blood Groups

If you have a look at the picture I have uploaded of all of the Current Blood Stocks then it’ll give you an idea of what I am talking about. I had no idea what blood group I was before I went to give blood, I am the second most common blood, A+ and the stock level of A+ is around 20,000 units so compared to the others there is a lot. Here is a scale of the Blood Types, how common they are and the stock levels they have of these blood groups.

O Pos- 20,167 (37%)
A Pos- 19,531 (35%)
A Neg, 4,147 (7%)
B Pos- 4,605 (8%)
O Neg- 2,981 (7%)
AB Pos- 1,648 (3%)
B Neg- 1.103 (2%)
AB Neg, 220 (1%)

So you can see from this little table that if you are AB Negative then you are 1% of the population that are this blood group, this means that your blood is the rarest and if you had an accident and needed a blood transfusion or something like that, then you might have trouble getting the blood transfusion due to the limit in stock.

When it’s Taken, Where Does the Blood Go?

The blood you donate will be packed up and sent to many of blood centres up and down the country. There they’ll check that you haven’t lied on your forms and check that your blood is clear from HIV and things like that. They’ll also check your blood type here and then do the bits that make me have bad flashbacks to Science so I’m gonna be brief here.

The scientist dudes separate the blood into its components, for example: red cells, platelets and plasma. Each different component is used for something different, for example platelets are used in post transplant and chemo treatment and plasmas are used in cases of blood loss.

Once the blood has been checked and separated into it components it’s distributed to different hospitals to meet their demand. There they use it to save lives.

Donor Award Scheme

I found it very exciting to receive a red card in the post which had my name on, how many donations I had done and my blood type. This is carried in my wallet, and you get another one each time you reach a milestone. After my one in December of this year (5th) I will be getting a new card. They also have little stickers in the refreshment area, I also picked up a little key ring with my blood type on it.

Should You Give Blood?

I face probably one of the worst times when I go to give blood, I do have a tendency to faint for some reason and this seems to happen NEARLY when I go to give blood and I do face a lot of pain during and after the donation, however I still go back every 16 weeks, because you are saving someone’s life, maybe even your own life. Imagine that the blood you are giving is there for you when you need a transfusion, without that you may not live.

The feeling you get after giving blood is lovely, you have saved someone’s life just by sitting on a bed and them draining you for 10 minutes. It sounds horrible when I describe it like that but you are doing something brilliant and I’m sure most of you will have an easy time with donating, I think I’m just a big wimp or the nurses at our centre are incompetent.

It is a quick and easy process which only happens every 4 months or so, if you can find it within yourself to donate then it is a great thing that you are doing, I know they are getting a very limited amount of new members recently, I went about 3pm today and it started at 1pm and only 2 newbies had been out of a great range of people. It is well worth it.

My Idea

When I was trying to recover from the donation, I could hear people talking about the fact that there is a very limited amount of people that give blood now a days and in the car on the way back, we were saying why don’t they take the centre to colleges around the country as well. This would get new blood (pardon the pun), and I know for a fact, students would do anything to get out of lessons for an hour or so, we had a clymidia screening test in the college a few months ago and everyone went, I’m sure it’ll be the same with giving blood. I’m sure that this is a stupid idea or something but it seems to make sense to me.

The Website

When I first realised that as soon as I turned 17 I could start giving blood, I jumped onto the website to see if I was eligible, there was a great little questionnaire that you click yes or no to and then they tell you if you really would be eligible to give blood. Here is the link:

http://www.blood.co.uk/pages/flash_questions.html

I was a bit unsure of whether I could give blood or not, due to my bad history and illnesses, I have to say that the questionnaire told me they might not let me donate however they had no problems when I went to give blood. Don’t take what the questionnaire says as god; as long as you are not pregnant then they might take your blood.

The website tells you everything you need to know about giving blood, this even includes a virtual session of the process of giving blood, I have only just seen this and it is really good, I would recommend checking it out, it shows just how quick and easy it really is.

http://www.blood.co.uk/virtualsession/index.htm

Final Comment

I really recommend giving blood, not only are you saving a life that might not be saved without your donation, but you are possibly saving your own life; you never know the donation that you give could be the blood they give you if you ever need a transfusion. I hope my review has helped you to make up your mind about donating, and I would love to hear people’s stories about their own donations (comments please). I hope this review was helpful, I was a bit sceptical about doing a cafe review but I had nothing else to review so...

Please r/r/c and I hope this review has made up your mind about deciding.

(c) 2009 xxx
 

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