Blood donation goes high tech

[jethrien]

The blood drive people have new apparatus. Instead of just clipping your bag to the railing, they put it in this little cradle that has tiny robotic arms that tips it back and forth (I guess to keep the blood flowing?) And when it gets heavy enough, the robot thing cheerfully starts cheeping until an attendant comes over and clamps the tube. It's actually ridiculously cute. (The mental image is probably cuter than the actual device. It mostly looks like a robotic swing with a digital display set. But now I'm picturing Pintsize from Questionable Content, rocking the blood cradle back and forth. Wait, no, Pintsize wouldn't be cute, he'd be creepy. Maybe the iPod robot instead. Or Marigold's chibi bot.)

Something must have happened, though - they were far more obsessive about reading you all the directions afterwards and walking you to the table and inspecting your bandage than ever before.

Comments

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

So things that will make everything easier: take an iron supplement for a day or two ahead of time. Don't take aspirin for a couple days ahead of time. Make sure you eat a normal amount of food before you go in, and make sure you get a lot of liquids (low caffeine) before and after. Don't sit up too fast, and don't plan any exercise. If you take stairs too fast afterwards, you may feel more out of breath than usual. It'll take a day or two to adjust, but most people really don't feel the effects all that much unless they decide to do drunken weightlifting while smoking.

The machine thing--if your drive location has this, it's really not scary. You're not attached to it in any way. The old way of doing it was to hang the bag off your stretcher. Now, they put it in a little mechanical hammock. You're not hooked into anything, it's just that your bag gets gently tilted back and forth. You could pull the bag out if you wanted. Not scary, a little cute.

Should you ever donate platelets, that's entirely a different matter. That actually does involve being hooked up into a machine. They put a needle in each arm, and basically pull out some blood through one arm, run it through a machine that separates out the platelets, and put the platelet-less blood back into the other arm. I've never done it, but my father-in-law has. He says it's fine, it just takes awhile and you can't move your arms, so it's really boring. Not scary, though.

Basically--there's no way to know how your body will react to this without trying. But they're very aware that some people have a tendency to pass out or get dizzy, and they're really invested in making sure you're safe and comfy. It's a little assembly-line-like, but if you actually have a problem, they're trained to look after you. And the worst thing that will happen is that you'll wake up with a nice worried nurse hanging over you, who will then feed you donuts. And that's not that likely. Most people are just fine. It will be ok.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that was really helpful.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Things are much less intimidating when you actually have an idea going in what they're going to be like.

Oh, the other thing - give yourself lots of time. Every blood drive I've ever been to has ended up running behind schedule. :)