I had quite an interesting morning today...well, yesterday, rather. I was called up by SGH to donate platelets for my camp friend, who's currently suffering from leukemia (a type of cancer, btw). Horrible disease.
Anyway, for those who've heard of blood donation but not platelet donation, platelet donation involves around seven cycles of blood extraction from your body...meaning, of course, that seven units of your blood is removed instead of just one... 0_o
Haha ok i'm making it sound much worse that it really is. Because your blood is centrifuged to extract the platelets, and the rest of your blood is returned to your body after each cycle, so...er...it's not like people are gonna die from donating or whatever. Lol.
You WILL lose about half a unit of blood and platelet fluid, however...it's like they take a small bag of your blood, a couple more test-tubes/vials of it (as if they needed to perform THAT many tests)...and then there's the platelet fluid and the blood that's left behind in the tubing when the whole thing is over...
But for me, the procedure simply involved two pretty
mild shots of pain (anaesthetic injection and the REAL injection) and two freakin HOURS of rather
heavy discomfort...which got worse towards the end when the effects of the anaesthetic somehow started to fade away. Whoever said that you could sleep during the whole procedure was obviously lying.
...Or to be fair, he/she was being optimistic. Really,
really optimistic.
Interestingly, it was more painful when the blood was being pumped back into my body than when it was being extracted. And i had to squeeze this heart-shaped toy like a "stress-man" repeatedly as my blood was extracted, because my blood just wasn't being pumped out fast enough even with that tourniquet thing tied around my arm! Plus there was the suction from the machine too; until now, i'm still feeling the effects of it on my arm.
The worst part was probably at the end of it. I was so looking forward to getting the needle out when this male nurse came over and asked if i could continue for one more cycle. I was obviously quite hesitant about it, but in the end i was like "aiyah, anything lah".
Then he started messing with my arm-rest because he thought it might be a bit too high. And he really did lower it. In one huge jerk, which caused the needle to literally jerk in my vein.
It was very painful.
The mind-numbing, hand to forehead type. I couldn't continue for another cycle after that. Well, anyway, despite all this talk about pain...you should still donate platelets if you've got a friend who needs them! It's just based on blood type and there's not much chance of rejection, so they do it more or less on a patient-to-patient basis. In other words, it's FAR easier to find a platelet donor than, say, a bone-marrow donor.
But nevertheless, you should suffer a bit of pain to help someone in need! As i like to put it: The BEST deeds in life are the ones that you LEAST want to do! Because of the whole "thicker veins are better" issue, guys are PREFERRED! Being a wuss with needle-phobia is not an excuse!
Okay, i'm starting to blabber out complete nonsense. I'm just very tired now, alright?? Anyway, platelets are VERY important when it comes ot blood-clotting for both internal AND external bleeding. So i'm just going to have to avoid getting any cuts, bruises, injuries for the next couple of days.
Oh and to sidetrack a little bit: I was actually quite fascinated with that heart-shaped "stress-man" toy! Because even when my arm felt totally lifeless, the toy just stayed in my palm without falling out! I wonder if it was designed for that very purpose...
Lol. I'd better end this post here.
