Not the (excellent but bonkers) movie from Seth Ickerman, which itself was inspired by his (excellent but bonkers) music video for Turbo Killer by Carpenter Brut.
No, this post is about my first experience donating blood to our (excellent but… flawed, not bonkers) National Health Service.
It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a long, long time. And not least because doing so would tell me what my blood type is, a part of my medical details that I’ve somehow got into my 40s without finding out.
Every so often over the past 10 years or so, I’d go to the Blood.co.uk website and search for a donation centre, only to find that they were all weirdly far away and wouldn’t have any appointments free for months, and went off the idea. Busy guy, lots to do, etcetera etcetera.
But, being footloose and fancy-free does give you a bit more free time, so I figured I’d give it another whirl. My closest donation point was a ‘pop up’ donation centre near Wolverhampton, around a 35 minute drive away, and the next available appointment was the 20th November.
Astute readers might have noticed that that was yesterday…
Blood Drive
Without knowing much about what to expect, I took the drive over to the donation centre, leaving myself a good 15-20 minutes buffer at the other end because the Sky Gods had been unkind enough to throw a load of white stuff at us over the past couple of days:
Driving in snowy conditions, in a rear wheel drive sports car with a very slippy clutch (being fixed next week, mechanical sympathy fans) didn’t seem like my idea of fun, but luckily it had mostly cleared up by the time I had to go. Still, I knew the donation centre was in a small village type of place, so I didn’t want to take any chances and end up rushing myself into an accident.
On arrival at the centre (a Village Hall) the first thing that struck me was how busy it was. I don’t know why, but I’d expected it to be a couple of members of staff, next to one or maybe two chairs for donors to sit in… but no, there were at least eight chairs in the donation area (all occupied!), a refreshments area with four seats around it, and a surprisingly large waiting area, that had 23 of 25 seats occupied.
I ‘signed in’ with the member of staff at the door, and they handed me a plastic cup with 500ml of water, a consent form and a booklet, and advised me to sit in the waiting area, fill out the form and wait until I was called, and make sure I’d drunk the water by the time I was.
Paperwork, bloody paperwork
The form was pretty straightforward. Name, address, date of birth, and then a comprehensive set of questions about my medical history, recent sexual activity and drug use. The idea is that you should be answering ‘no’ to almost all of the questions, anything that gets a ‘yes’ will be probed further by the nurse when you’re called up.
There were a couple of questions that I had to answer ‘yes’ to, but nothing that was of any cause for concern to the staff, so they showed me through to the donation area, where I sat in the chair, was reclined back into a more supine position, and waited to be stuck with the needle.
Except I completely forgot to take off my jacket and hoodie, so I had to quickly do that, feeling like an idiot the whole time because of course I should have just done that in the first place. Can’t stick a needle through two thick layers, can they?
Veiny, vidi, vici
The first thing that the phlebotomist tasked with extracting my life force had to do was to find a suitable vein to jab and drain. They put an inflatable cuff around my upper arm (like a blood pressure test) and pumped it up a little, asking me to squeeze by hand into a fist repeatedly while they poked and prodded my arm to encourage a vein to appear.
They couldn’t identify a suitable candidate on my left arm, so they moved all of the apparatus to my right arm and tried again, but to no avail. Before sending me on my merry way as “unsuitable” they called over one of their supervisors and asked them to give it a go, and they duly took over. They had similar problems, but decided to go ahead anyway as they had more confidence that a good vein to prick had been found.
Now, I wouldn’t say I have a fear of needles or anything, but I absolutely hate watching a needle go in (or come out) of my body, so whether I’m having a vaccination or something more involved, I have to look away while the “sharp scratch” is happening. I felt the needle go in, and immediately felt a short but sharp burst of discomfort (not pain) radiate down my arm, which I was assured was normal.
There Will Be Blood
My red stuff started to flow out of me, at a “lovely rate” according to the phlebotomist, so I just lay back and thought of England, squeezing my hand into a fist and wiggling my fingers the whole time, which apparently aids the donation and also helps with recovery afterwards.
I tried to muck about on my phone for a bit, but using it left handed isn’t ideal so in the end I just relaxed. I did take a photo though:
As I lay there, I suddenly became very aware of all of the beeping sounds from the array of machines around the Village Hall, all of them beavering away, sucking blood out of their respective companions. Weirdly, with all the different machines combined, it sounded exactly like the beeps and boops that the Arkanoid arcade cabinet used to play as a ‘jingle’ when you started and ended a level.
You Can Call Me Rambo
Because this was my First Blood donation, you see? Anyway, the mechanical vampire automatically stopped doing its thing after extracting 470ml from me, and a nurse came over to see to me and take everything out to get me on my way.
Again, I had to look away while they pulled the needle out of me, but I needn’t have worried — they were very quick to cover the area with the dressing and got me to apply pressure to it to help the blood clot over.
One thing I was not prepared for was the burning sensation after the needle was removed. They told me that this was also normal, but it felt like the most intense pins and needles I’ve ever had, moving down my arm to my fingers and back up. They checked that I could still feel my fingertips (I could) so were not worried, and sure enough after a few seconds the sensation disappeared, and they dispatched me off to the refreshments area where I was to stay for around 15 minutes, drinking fluids from the free squash provided, and helping myself to one or two snacks (crisps and biscuits) to get my sugar levels back up I suppose.
Blood Diamond
While I was doing this, the head staffer made an announcement over a loudspeaker that they’d just collected their 100th donation that day, which prompted everyone that could to give a round of applause, and it was at this moment that I realised that I was now a part of this incredible and surprisingly industrial process, a well-oiled machine that – no doubt through trial and error over the years – has been designed to extract as much blood from willing donors as possible in as short a time as possible.
I saw in the round of applause that not only were the staff incredibly proud of what they were achieving (and presumably on a near daily basis) but so too were the donors, both those that had already been dealt with that day, and also the ones still waiting patiently.
The blood that I gave that day could, apparently, go on to help save the lives of up to three people. Multiplied out by the number of donors each day, across each centre in the UK (thousands, some of which won’t be as popular of course) and it really brought home just how brilliant our health professionals are to operate this well-oiled machine, and how amazing everyone choosing to donate is. It almost felt like something out of science-fiction.
I know that sounds soppy, but you could see from the way people chatted with each other in the waiting area that some of them were very regular donors, and one or two seemed almost fanatical about it. I’ve since learned that there are donation milestones and rewards for reaching them – nothing groundbreaking, it is taxpayer-funded after all, but I can’t think of anything that is more deserving of the increased usage and ‘user retention’ that gamification can bring.
I will absolutely do it again in future, and you should too. Seriously, you should. The only better way to help save lives for us regular folk is to register as an organ donor, and you have to be bloody dead before that makes a difference! Go on, look for an appointment near you right now!
Oh, and my blood type? A+. Which makes me laugh, in a “good eBay seller” kind of way. “Great donor, friendly communications, excellent quality and fast delivery. Would accept blood from again. A+”
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