So, on Friday I was brave. I mean, really, really brave. I donated blood for the first time. Yay!!! BYU was doing a week long blood drive and every time I walked by it in the Wilk, I felt guilt. But, I have this bad habit of not always eating and I knew that would make donating blood difficult. But, on Friday, I had a big breakfast and lunch, got Cathryn to come (which wasn't difficult, she's way braver than me) and went to face my biggest fear!
We had to wait for a really long time. We signed in at 1. At 2, we were finally able to go to the cranky finger pricking ladies. Well, at least mine was cranky. And she squeezed like 4 drops of blood out before she could use one. Lame/ouch. Then after aswering a bazillion questions that reaffirmed that I really am way too sheltered, I went to wait for my turn. I was so scared! I put my iPod on my testing center playlist, but even that didn't help...
Finally, they called me up. The blood guy's name was Edward. That was so subtly ironic that it helped ease my fears a bit... Edward kept telling me to call down and that it wouldn't hurt (lies) and that I would be fine. Then he stuck the world's biggest needle in me. Then he was like, "Huh, I wonder why there's not blood coming. I know it's in the vein." So, he calls over blood lady. She's like, "Huh, I wonder why there's not blood coming. I know it's in the vein." So, they tried to dig under the vein. Nope. They tried going above the vein. Nope. They tried variations of this for about 5 minutes. I was freaking out. Really. It hurt some, but I was mostly terrified. I hate the thought of a needle being in me. I feel a little dumb for slightly losing it in front of many, many strangers. but it was a bad situation. Just as I was about to ask them to give up and let me go home, the blood started to come. Yay! My terror wasn't for naught! Once it was done, I was supposed to sit down for at least 10 minutes. Too bad how I was already late for choir (it was 3:10). So, I sat down for about 45 seconds and left.
It wasn't a pleasant experience, but I'm glad I did it. I mean, I don't have a lot of time or money to donate to people, but at least I was able to do this. I'm starting right now to talk myself into it again. Maybe I'll build up the courage by the time I'm allowed to again.
