I give every so often, usually if I am at the local hospital where my PCP has offices. This year during the holidays I was bummed that since I have been under-employed, I couldn’t give my usual year-end donations to my favorite charities. It occurred to me that one thing I could give was blood, and I felt much better about being able to do something useful for others.
Although when my alma mater called asking for their financial donation, it was funny how they didn’t really think it was the same when I told them I gave blood instead.
Well, I have never donated plasma, but that’s what I’ve been told. Don’t you live in Canada? Maybe it’s different there?
I haven’t donated in counts five+ years, so maybe they have speedier apheresis machines here now. I’m glad to hear that! It often would take longer for me because I’d have them put one of the lines into my hand so I could turn the pages of my book.
I have tried to donate blood but it never goes well. The last time I tried (20 years ago), I wound up with a bruise the size of a honeydew melon.
I’m what the phlebotomists in my doctor’s lab call a “tough stick” and have often been turned over to the most senior person in the lab just to find a vein.