Donating Blood at Red Cross for the 2nd Time

One of my goals this year is to donate blood to the Philippine Red Cross and I finally achieved it before the year ends.

I wrote it as a goal because I consider it as a heroic deed or humanitarian act. It's something that I can do for others who might be in a critical condition that needs blood and to save a life. It's also my simple way of helping myself since donating blood has its own benefits. It includes free health checkups and pathology tests since before the blood donation, there is a medical check-up first to know if I'm a healthy donor. It also reduces the risk of heart and liver diseases, lowers the risk of getting cancer, develops new blood cells, maintains your body weight, lowers cholesterol levels, and improves your mental well-being.

My first time to donate blood was already almost 2 years ago, last January 08, 2020. I donated blood before as part of my community service, which is a requirement for my Academic Scholarship at that time.

Before that, I actually first visited the Philippine Red Cross- Ilocos Norte Laoag Chapter around December of 2019 to be a part of the bloodletting activity conducted by the Local Youth Development Office of our province but I was not allowed to donate blood at that time because of having low hemoglobin. And I suspect it was because I slept too late or due to my monthly period.

My first-time experience of donating blood last year made me want to donate blood again and do this every year as a commitment to myself and for others. But when the pandemic came and the year 2021 was quite a challenging year for me, I thought it would be impossible to donate blood again this year.

But last December 23, 2021, one of the leaders of our organization sent a link to a Facebook post about a bloodletting activity in partnership with the Philippine Red Cross to celebrate National Volunteerism Month. And after reading it, I immediately sent my details to confirm my participation.

And yesterday, December 29, 2021, when I went to the city, I took the chance to donate blood again and fulfill my goal so I went to the venue after doing some of the things I needed to do in the city.

When I got there, I filled up the blood donor interview sheet and honestly answered all of the questions in the form. There were more than 20 donors yesterday and when it was my time to be interviewed by the medical staff there, I just had to answer all of the questions again, and she asked for my temperature and weight, and she checked my pulse, blood pressure, and blood count using a pathology test.

And when it was already my time to donate blood, I just had to lie down on the chair and rest my arm as the medical staff is doing something on my arm to find the nerve or whatever it is where she will inject the huge needle where the blood will flow out of my body. When she was done with it, she told me to take a deep breath as she inserted the needle and it didn't hurt that much. It was only like a huge dinosaur was biting me. Lols!

I had to squeeze the ball every 5 seconds or whenever I had the energy to do it so that the blood will continue to flow out of my arm. And when the blood bag was already full, the medical staff then removed the needle in my arm.

After that, I just had to rest for about 5 minutes, which was supposed to be about 30 minutes or even up to 1 hour. And after standing for only 5 to 10 minutes, blood started to come out of my arm and I almost passed out but it's a good thing that I was still at the venue and the people there assisted me until I already gained my energy back.

Donating blood is really risky so you should be extra careful and don't move too much after the procedure or you will totally pass out.

If you are also interested to donate blood, you must:

• Donors aged 18-60 years old

• Acceptable weight: 50 Kg

• Acceptable blood pressure: 90/60 up to 140/90

• Acceptable heart rate: 60-100 bpm

• Acceptable after 1 year of conduct: (Tattoo, Undergo surgical procedure, Travel abroad)

• Must have 6-8 hours of sleep.

• No intake of alcoholic beverages in the past 12-24 hours.

• No cigarette was smoked for the past 4 hours prior to donation.

Cheers to donating blood to save a life!