Blood drive!

A couple Fridays ago, the Residence Hall Association put on a blood drive on campus. Drake usually gets 2-3 blood drives each year, giving students plenty of chances to donate.

Personally, I'm completely phobic when it comes to needles. It's ridiculous, actually. I have to really, REALLY motivate myself just to get my flu shot. It's awful. As such, I had never donated blood before. I felt badly about it, too. It's such a good thing to do, but I could never bring myself to get over the needle phobia and do it. That's not to mention that fact that I've heard horror stories from people who have donated - stories about people not being able to find their veins and having to dig around and look for it and all sorts of hair-raising things like that.

This time I signed up to volunteer to help at the blood drive and then decided that this would finally be the year I would donate blood. I didn't know what all was involved, and to be honest I had a pretty gruesome idea of what it would be. I thought there would be bags full of blood laying around for one thing.

The night before a friend of mine told me exactly what would happen. I was still nervous, but he made me feel loads better about it. I knew I could suck it up and donate.

The next day I was working my volunteer shift, watching a bunch of people come and go and donate blood. It didn't look so bad. At the end of my shift I checked in at the donor table and started to fill out all my paperwork. I was still super nervous, but I was proud of myself for not chickening out yet.

I got called into a little private booth where a nurse type of person could ask me more personal questions about my paperwork. She was reviewing my history (on one of the forms) and she stopped, looked at me funny, and left for a good ten minutes.

I knew what she saw - she saw that I marked I had lived in the UK for three years (1995-1998). After coming back to the states, doctors told us we had to wait ten years until we were eligible to give blood again since we lived in England during the Mad Cow Disease scare - we also ate a lot of beef, I'm told. But this was year 11 so I should be in the clear.

Should was the operative word there.

The nurse came back and I told her about the 10-year ban and she smiled sadly at me and told me that is not the case. In fact, because there's no way to really test for Mad Cow Disease (other than an autopsy), I've been deferred indefinitely. Translation: I can't donate blood - ever. At least until there's a test for Mad Cow Disease and the ban is lifted.

I was really disappointed. It was a big deal for me to give blood and I was excited to do it. It got me out of two needle pricks (one for a finger prick to test my iron, and one for the actual blood donation), but I was still let down.

I guess the important part is that I tried. And I'm still proud of myself for that.

But, if YOU can donate blood, you definitely should. One donation can save up to three lives. Think about it.