haha i was slightly nervous before it - i never liked needles much. Not the shaky-intense fear, but the jittery exam feeling.
Ok if anyone wants to donate blood in the future and is afraid /apprehensive for some reason, don't be. Well, i'm here to enlighten you on the exact procedures. :)
Firstly, you have to fill up this questionaire form thing. Mainly about whether you have any STDs la ^_^
Then you go to a nurse who keys in your personal particulars.
Then you go queue up to be evaluated by a doctor, who basically goes through the important points in the questionaire you have taken, and takes your blood pressure. If it's too high or too low you cannot donate. Mine was borderline, lucky sia. Some people were rejected.
After that comes the blood test.. this nurse will poke you with this spring-needle. The needle just springs out and pricks you. It sounds like a damn STAPLER la, so when i heard it done on my friend i was like.. 'oww'. I mean, stapling yourself!?!?
But it wasnt that bad la. A sudden prick.. then the nurse will squeeze your finger so the blood drips out. Don't worry that isn't very painful.
Then if you pass that.. on to the blood donation!
Basically , the nurse swabs your forearm area with alcohol. Then she injects you with a painkiller (that's what she called it), which makes that area numb. Then she injects you with a BIG needle that sucks your blood out :) It's about 10-15 minutes of sucking before the process is done.
I actually videoed the process :) Refer to the end for the video.
Well to whet your appetites first, here are some pictures of the process.
CAUTION!
Disturbing images containing blood and piercings ahead. If you are queasy or afraid of such things, don't proceed, just scroll down quickly till you skip past the pictures.
The needle is already in me.. I'm holding on to this cute blood creature thing that i have to squeeze every 5-10 seconds.
Huh what?
You want to see the needle in me?
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Well.. that gauze is in the way.
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That can be rectified. Just take away the gauze la. ok look:
woo. The needle is in me..
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A much better angle. If you look carefully, you can see the shape of the needle underneath my skin :)If the needle looks big..well, it's because it IS big. It's about 2-3 mm thick la. damn big.
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The next two pictures are just pictures of my blood bag. Half full and then almost full.
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My wound!.
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snacks corner!! can take after you finish donating :) haha. i whacked the oreos and milo. shiok sia. :)Ok that's a wrap. As you can see blood donation is really fun and not scary. So go and give blood! Every packet of blood could save 3 lives!! So go and be a life saver now!
Oh yea, they gave us this cute blood monster that i was talking about just now. It's like a stressball thing, can squeeze one, but shaped like this:
So cute right :)
Haha but my friend john go and twist its limbs abit.. then with a bit of photoshop..
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FOOOOOOOO~ !!! =D
Ok here's the video BUT DONT PLAY IT YET. download this audio clip first.
Click me
(er, for those who dont know how, right click and click 'save target as')
Then play the audio clip first, then follow the instructions. dont play the video first hor! maybe just click and pause straight away so that it buffers.
