| Comment | Had a good one this week.
I have donated blood a few times, and because I bleed like a champ, got asked to donate platelets. Grand.
I *really* disliked the experience. Basically it's much longer - about 2 hours - but the main difference is that it's 30 second loops of draw/release. You squeeze a squishy ball when it's drawing, then it gets the platelets out and returns the blood to you, and you should not squeeze during this. One time across the two hours I squeezed, and you could feel it struggling up the vein. At one point my heart vaguely gurgled. Really grossed me out, personally, but fuck it - it's important and it matters to people, so I'll keep doing it.
They phoned up and went 'it's been a week, let's get you in again', and I went 'can I have a bit longer?', and got told basically no: you come regularly or don't come at all; you can't be on the blood donor and platelet lists.
So that's that: because I'm not donating platelets regularly, and preferred giving blood, I can't now donate plaletets even as one-offs (which I was game for).
Woman even went 'it's fine, not everyone's cut out for it', which was *great*. |
|---|