My whole life I thought I had poopy blood. The type of blood that no one else would be eligible for if I did donate. In 2024, I revisited this thinking and donated blood.
If you've never donated blood before or you have and haven't made it a habit, this is a life experience piece about my donating blood the maximum amount this year. Maybe reading about my experience will encourage you to give it a try too.
I didn't know my blood type. I had a hunch from a hospital stay many, many years ago that it was something like AB. However, I didn't really know. Not at all well enough to accept blood if I needed it. So I went to donate blood: they would tell me what my blood type is.
My first donation was pretty stressful. I'd never given blood before and have many friends who are afraid of blood and needles. I had been cocooned in this echo fear chamber for a lot of my life and went into donating fairly blind.
In Seattle, my nearest blood donation center is Bloodworks Northwest and so I scheduled an appointment online with them and turned up to donate. My first reaction: there are a lot of upfront checks and stuff prior to the actual giving blood part.
Before you even get checked in at the waiting area, you've already read a couple PDFs of possible disqualifications and completed a questionnaire, which must be completed that day. Then they take your pulse, your weight, squeeze your arm with that thing–you know the one, and lastly do a hemoglobin test to make sure you have enough iron. Then we get down to business.
Afterwards, about two days later, I got a notification about my blood type. What the blood test showed was practically the exact opposite of what I thought. I didn't have garbage blood, I had the second best blood type for donations: O+. (70% of people can accept O+ and it is often used in emergencies/ICUs.)
Knowing that I had blood someone would want encouraged me to continue donating blood.
The maximum someone can donate blood is six times a year. I went all six times. So I feel pretty good to give a review of the experience.
For the fearful, of the six donation experiences, I would say two were not great. I wish it was all sun and rainbows but even going to the same donation center each time, I had nurses of different experience levels, with different approaches, and with different levels of luck.
Bad experience 1: Bruh, the needle straight up hurt. One nurse stuck it in, but not enough. Another nurse came over and adjusted it into a better position. The initial stick hurt more than all the other sticks I'd had in total, easily. At the time, I thought the nurse just wasn't very gentle, but it's hard to say that gentleness is even the right quality you want. The adjusting also hurt, so definitely a painful experience.
Bad experience 2: The needle was stuck, but not at a good angle to have the blood flow. I know at least two people who are gonna be grossed to death hearing this but instead of re-sticking or adjusting the nurse took a different approach. They tilted the needle in my arm just enough to get the blood flowing right.
This experience wasn't super painful–nothing like bad experience 1. What made it a bad experience was how unplanned or rare it seemed, especially after I had gone a few times. In prior visits, the nurse would stick you and then walk off and leave you to calmly drain.
Here the nurse stuck by my side, holding the needle in place, for the entire duration (about 5-6 minutes). I was scared and stressed for all that time, wondering if everything was gonna be okay. The nurse didn't exude confidence as it was all happening. However, I do understand not wanting to stress someone out more by explaining verbally what you're doing to them. I did not state my preference of knowing what was going on, I was too scared; so it's hard to fault the nurse. But yeah, stressful.
All the other times were just fine. The needle stick isn't too bad and I still do always look away when it is being placed.
Pain-wise, I've actually found the pre-screening hemoglobin test to be more painful than the donation itself. (They prick your finger for a little drop of blood to test. Your finger is a bit more sensitive than your elbow pit.)
My stress has gone over my visits, and attribute some of that to the controlled setting. Some nurses even remember me at this point. So I definitely recommend scheduling a visit to a donation center if you want to make a routine of donating.
Overall, I'm happy with the experience.
After giving blood, I've personally had it pretty chill. No side effects to speak of really. I do avoid exercise for the rest of the day as they recommend.
There was only one time, post-donation, that freaked me out a bit. I mention it because I was scared and so talking about it may calm others down.
The nurses wrap your arm in a wrap (gauss) after the needle is removed so the puncture wound can heal up. They want you removing the wrap anytime after four hours.
When I donate, afterwards I go back to work. Only when I get home do I remove the wrap while I take a shower. Once I had kept a wrap on for about 9 hours. It was wrapped a bit tighter than usual too. I took it off perhaps a bit too quickly and re-opened the puncture wound, enough it was bleeding a bit.
This spooked me. I covered it with a cotton ball and waited maybe ten minutes. The blood stopped. It was all good.
Here's some cool things I've learned:
O+ and O- blood sometimes has a special quota for those emergency situations I mentioned. I was thrilled to know my blood would be flying around in emergency helicopters. This takes some chances though, sometimes there's no quota to fill so your donation is "just" a regular one.
It takes about three donations to complete an average blood transfusion. So in a year, you can provide two blood transfusions.
Bloodworks and other donation centers keep a running tally of the amount of blood you donated. It's about a pint (500ml) each time. It's cool watching the "score" go up over time.
There are other donations you can do: platelets, plasma, and if O+ or O- "double red cell" which is like two whole blood donations in one except they give you your plasma back. I've not tried other donation types, but the double red cell sounds interesting and perhaps convenient because you only need to donate three times a year to max out.
So yeah, that's the blood donation experience. I hope you found this useful and encouraging. If you're in the Seattle area and want a donation buddy, I'm happy to support you in getting started with donating. It definitely can help having someone there the first few times.
Happy donating!