Blood Letting Blues or a Crisis in Self-Esteem Management

Donating blood right now on this newish Alyx blood separating machine. Hopefully I'll be done soon. Long 30 minutes.

This should keep you occupied then......

tsar, are you well hydrated before they stick you?

Much easier to find a good vein if you are.

Went in to donate whole blood today. I guess they're super desperate and they convinced me to commit to a double red cell donation today. A first for me. Of course, I agreed. Turns out they use the same machine for this procedure as they do with platelets extractions. And despite my concerns and doubts, everything went smoothly.

So basically, the procedure went without hitch and this was the first successful encounter with the platelets machine, and my veins have NOT given out halfway through I guess since 2014. I guess I forgot to update this thread after that previous posting. I vaguely recall I made it halfway through before they had to stop prematurely.

So, I will try and hopefully succeed in donating double red cells in another 4 months. That's a heck of a long stretch between donations. But dems apparently are the rules. I am glad I can do this in order to help anyone in need.

I'm wondering what part has to do with the tech being perfected over the preceding years. That has to be the key to some of this successful procedure.

Here's an example of a DIFFERENT kind (and even seasonal) of blood donation.