Gave blood yesterday. There are good points and bad points to this activity.

I wanted to give and as soon as I got the text msg about the 7.0 in Haiti, within 1/2 hour I signed up via online appointment to give blood in Fullerton. Not necessarily to have my blood sent to Haiti, but to augment the store we have in Orange County since you KNOW some of ours would be sent. We need more stuff HERE.

The GOOD Stuff:
-I gave.
-I have GREAT veins. UNBELIEVEABLE.
-I have no medical conditions that prevent me from giving.
-My blood pressure, pulse, iron count are all awesome.
-I fill up a bag in 7 minutes (I timed myself).

Now the BAD stuff:
-I'm a wuss. I always kinda get freaked out, ostensibly about needles. In days gone by when I was 12, my mother took me to a lab for the first time my blood would be drawn. (I had always had a problem with shots) She dropped me off and told me to do what they told me to. When they came at me with that needle, I FREAKED and it took about an hour to do it and I was crying all the time.
Something like that sticks with you through the years, so it takes a definite WILL and a certain amount of courage to be voluntarily stuck. IV's, giving blood, shots all fall under that category. I have to have a pretty DAMN good reason and and then psych/talk myself into it. When admitted to the hospital for anything from tonsils to pneumonia to childbirth, those were GOOD REASONS. Having blood drawn 2x/year to check for stuff going on with my body, hey, it's doable, information is crucial now at my age.
-I need to psych myself up to do this via lots of thinking about how someone can really use it. I also tell a lot of people about it because I know they'll come back to me and ask how it was or did I do it? and I want to be able to tell them that I DID.
-I had to TELL the phlebotomist that I was a wuss so she put my knees up and cold compresses on my chest and head. It helped. She asked me if it was my first time and I said no. I felt kinda shitty, being such a baby and it NOT being my first time, but it'd be better that she knew and I didn't keel over right there.
-It's harder and harder now for me to recover. The needle was in at 11:28 AM (I even just now shuddered when I wrote 'the needle'. I know, WUSS, WUSS, WUSS) and the blood was flowing and I had my headphones in so I wouldn't pay that much attention to it going in, and I timed 7 minutes until they put the bag on my tummy to note that I was done.
NOW the bad part: I kinda felt woozy at the 5 minute mark, and after they took everything out of my arm I felt woozier, dizzy, almost sick. You know how you see light flashes when your eyes are closed? and how you see light flashy-kinda things when your eyes are open? BINGO. It took 35 MINUTES for me to be able to get up and sit over at the recovery area, and about 8 hours at home to be able to not drag my feet around the house. I mean, we're talking almost seeming like I was drunk, kind of out of it.


POSSIBLE STUFF GOING ON and IDEAS WHY I REACTED SO:
-I DID eat. Kinda. Had a good dinner, had an apple before class, had some pretzels before giving, POUNDED water the previous 24 hours.
Note what I wrote-'had an apple before class'. Yeah, I TAUGHT the step class about 2 hours before I gave. Maybe THAT was it. Probably was part of it.
-It might be that now I'm getting older, it's getting harder to recover. Talked to someone else about my age regarding this, he agreed.
-I'm a WUSS and I psyched myself into the reaction.

NOTE TO SELF: Do this on a Friday when I have no class.

I'll see how I react to class this morning in an hour, and note the reactions/information.
Class today Sunday 01-17-10 8:15 AM went ok, high/low was ok, but I only used 1 riser per side of my step for the step portion vs. the 2 risers per side I usually use for this class. Good call, I kinda feel yucky right now at 10 AM.