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I am truly honored. I hope every blood donation I gave was able to help save a life. I always wonder about how the recipients are doing, and what circumstances led them to need a life saving blood transfusion. The blood bank keeps all of that private for security reasons, of course, along with the name of the donors who donate. I just hope it all helped.
This post made me realize I have never donated blood. Might do it just because.
Please do! Millions of people need blood transfusions everyday.
as someone who cannot, thank you. I depend on people like you to make up for me,
You’re so welcome! If it isn’t too personal, and you don’t mind me asking, why do you not donate? Is it a health reason, or a religious reason? I’ve known people who were JW and couldn’t donate. If you’ve had cancer, you can donate after treatment ends. Sometimes people think they are eliminated for life after medical problems arise, but the blood bank is actually pretty relaxed in some of their requirements. They even allow people who have just had a tattoo to donate, as long as they had it done at a licensed tattoo shop.
I'm not the person you responded to but for me its anemia and autoimmunity. Plus I have a tendency to faint when drawing blood.
Oh, ouch! I’m so sorry! I hope things improve for you. I know there are ways to combat the anemia and they can keep you in the chair longer to have you avoid fainting after the withdraw the IV, but I don’t know about the autoimmune disease. Is there any chance that will ever be remedied, or are you stuck with it for the rest of your life? Some diseases like mononucleosis disappear.
Thanks, its manageable but my autoimmunity is chronic. I get bloodwork done regularly and it's tough to get through those draws. I know there's conflicting advice on whether those with autoimmunity should donate, but I hate the process and never feel well after even those simple draws. I try to make up for it by being an organ donor but I'm not sure that mine will be worth much when I do go!
I faint after (or sometimes while) giving blood. After a couple times they told me thanks for trying, but they don't want to have to deal with that again so please don't. I could probably do a half donation but they don't take those. I used to donate plasma without problem but there is no location to do that near where I live.
Also not the person who you responded to, but unfortunately I got turned down by the blood bank because my veins are relatively narrow and have a tendency to roll to the side when trying to poke them with a needle. They had so much trouble hitting a vein with a regular needle for the initial blood work that they told me that giving blood is simply never going to work.
Ah, sorry that happened to you. I’ve known people who had that same problem. They said they left the blood bank with bruises after the phlebotomist couldn’t find a vein that would cooperate with the IV needle. At least you tried to donate! Thank you for trying! I wish every healthy adult would try.
Thanks for the nice words and thanks for donating!
Obligatory also not the person. I had a relative die from the Mad Cow prion. They say nobody in the family can donate, even though she likely contracted it at work, as a surgical nurse.
Omg. I’m so sorry. I would have donated if someone would have called me. Then again, if it happened between my eight weeks of rest after a previous blood donation, they probably would have turned me away. I think hospitals should allow O- donors to risk a second donation within the 8 week time period if it’s absolutely necessary to save a life.
Oh man that’s rad! I got a little pin….
Which obvi not why I do it, but yours is way cooler haha
Nice! Was it for donating one gallon? You should have a one gallon license plate frame, too, if you did. If they forgot to give it to you, they’ll probably mail it to you.
Just a pin for 1-4 gallons, and then random shirts and windbreakers here and there!
OP got a cool trophy, but you got things that are legitimately useful - I'd argue that's better.
I would have wondered if in the USA since you don’t have free healthcare surely they should pay you for your blood ¯ \ (ツ)/¯
I actually do have free healthcare. Or close to it. I have a free insurance plan because I’m so poor this year. The blood bank can’t pay its donors. They have to employ the people that draw blood and that costs money. The process of the blood transfusions are expensive to the recipients and they get billed for that. It would be nice if tax dollars could at least cover patient costs. I don’t mind donating for free if it saves a life.
Very cool!
I was recently donating while a guy celebrated his 200th donation!
Wow. A person can only donate about 6 times per year, since whole blood is allowed every eight weeks. How old was the donor? I mean 33.333… years of donations, right, and that’s if he never missed a chance to donate. If he started donating in high school at age 16, then he would be about 49 to 50 years old, right?
It wouldn't have surprised me if he was in his early 60s.
One of the ways you can get your numbers higher is with platelet donation. A donation via plateletpheresis can occur every few weeks. They basically take blood out, process out the platelets and pass the blood back into you, which results in less of an impact to the donor vs a standard whole blood donation.
My blood bank has a separate donor reward list for platelets and plasma. They’re always in need of that, too. I can’t donate for that, though. I’m O-. They told me they want AB+ for either platelets or plasma, I think. I think my ex boyfriend said he used to donate for that. I think they take A+, too. It’s weird to be the universal whole blood donor type, but not be able to give to any other cause for donation (platelets or plasma).
i get a certificate after every gallon but who gives a shit about that...one time i got a stick of bologna after a single blood donation, that was the best.
Really? Where is that donor center? I have never seen a donor center in America that gives out meat items as a post-donation snack.
Sounds like the midwest tbh. 🤣
How many donations is that? I'm at around 15 but don't know the volume
It’s given at 24 donations. There are eight pints to a gallon. So 3 gallons is 24 pints. I’m at 25 donations now.
The weird part is, I thought I had more donations than that. I asked them to check under my maiden name, too, and they said they did. I did miss two years while pregnant with each of my children, though. I guess it only adds up to 25 so far.
Do you always donate at the same place? When I received my one gallon pin, it was a complete surprise because i know that I had donated more than 1 gallon at that time. But I used to move a lot and would just pop into any random blood drive I saw anytime I was eligible to donate. I received the one gallon pin from one specific bloodbank that I've been going to for years now, and i just figure they dont know about the other places in different states. Since I'm anemic, the phlebotomists tell me to double my recovery time before donating again, so I can only donate 3 or 4 times a year, so it's taking a while for me to hit those milestones. I did get a postcard in the mail from the hospital affiliated w my bloodbank when my donation was used for a transfusion, which was pretty cool.
That’s cool. No, I have donated in many places. I even donated in Washington, D.C., once. The sites that are not connected to my local blood banks will not pair their rewards and records with those places in California. Even though they are all Red Cross affiliated, they are not truly connected for the donation counts and rewards system. I asked one of the people at my local blood bank and they told me this once.
Congrats! I just checked my stats because of you. Ive had 15 donations sinch 2018, 12 of which were double donations. i guess i dont know where that puts me on volume. No awards for here, but the free gatorade and pretsels after are pretty good! More than adequate compensation in my opinion. Keep it up!
Good for you! Keep going with it! Ours doesn’t offer Gatorade. How odd. I find it funny that ours offers soda and coffee to donors, in addition to fruit juices and water. Coffee and soda dehydrate a person. It just seems so counterintuitive.
Ooorah!!!!!
I need to start donating blood again, I have donated 27 times in my 36 years, but stopped during the pandemic as I lived a year on painkillers due to messed up feets and knee.
It has been two years since and while I am on high blood preassure meds, I feel fine to donate.
I hope you can donate again soon! The blood bank needs donors. You might want to ask them about your blood pressure medication first. It might be on the medication deferral list.
Oh yeah, there is a long list of questions about your recent medical, sexual and travel history and you are required to answer before you may donate blood.
I did travel to Spain back in March, so I'll have to check how long I need to wait...
You’re fine. I’ve been to Spain, too, and spent 2022-2023 between France, Ireland, and Scotland. They only care if you traveled to a region with a malaria risk. When I visited Africa I had to take a break from donating blood because my plane landed in Ethiopia to change flights after visiting the Seychelles. Ethiopia is a high risk for Malaria, apparently. Spain should be fine!
I just checked the rules and they seems to have been updated, there used to be a rule for traveling to our neighbours, Norway, Finland and Denmark, and other rules for different parts of Europe, but seems to have been loosened a bit, now it only talks about areas with malaria.
Eh, I'll find out when I get there.
I hope they still have the lovely colab with a local hospital so you can have them send a teddy bear to a child in hospital rather than get a gift for yourself, you still get pins for giving 10/25/50 times though.
That’s interesting. I didn’t know they had an option to send a gift to a hospitalized child, instead of being given an award. Maybe they do both and they just don’t coordinate it with blood donor awards. I know our local blood banks do a lot for the hospitals.
They also have rules for needle sticks, too. Someone in Ireland ran up to me on the street near the Liffey River, and stuck me in the right upper arm with a sharp. Apparently, gangs of locals try to scare away tourists and travelers who stay too long in their country. I was under a government protection act there, and had to stay longer than a normal passport allows. Anyway, the local hospital did a lot of blood draws on me later to make sure everything was normal. After I returned to America, I read the literature for deferrals on blood donation. They say you have to wait several months after being stuck, or accidentally stuck, with a sharp.
WTF, we have gangs here in Sweden (as you probably have heard), and they are horrible, they build bombs, blow up houses and shoot people, but it is mainly aimed at rival gangs, I have never heard about using needles to attack others, much less outsiders.
And them wanting tourists not to stay too long, do they have a list of how long you have stayed in Ireland?
So many questions....
https://www.thejournal.ie/arson-attacks-fire-asylum-seeker-accommodation-6252984-Feb2024/
I’m still looking for the article that talked about the local protests against immigrants and refugee seekers. Early this year, the locals set a female refugee seeker on fire in the street, in Dublin. Perhaps one of the locals thought I was a Ukrainian refugee when he stuck me with a needle. I’m pale, but I’m actually most of a mix of Scottish and Irish, though. Maybe It was personal. I shave my head. Maybe he hated shaved heads?
Good job! And thank you.
Thanks!😊
Hopefully not all at one time. You'd need a lot of OJ to recover. /s
Congratulations on being a good human. Society applauds you.
In a world where cadavers get used for military explosions rather than actual science, ehhh, I'm not so sure most people would wanna know.
No, there have been several cases in America where cadaver dogs have been used in rural areas to find dead bodies. They use them all the time to solve cold cases, and to locate bodies when a suspect finally confesses and says where the victim is buried.