I started giving blood when I became eligible in high school. I can't completely remember why I stopped, but I think I had a couple of bad experiences, one where I very nearly lost consciousness, so that may have been the reason.
However, after receiving a large donation from the blood bank for my incident, I purposed to start donating again. They say if you donate more than twice a year, you should be on an iron supplement, which I am not particularly interested in, so I try to keep my donations to the babies' due month (June), and the month we lost them (December).
Anyway, so I remembered yesterday that I should be keeping my eye out for a blood clinic in June, and when I went to the website, I found that there was one today. So I talked to Josh and said we should both go this time. I wanted to set a good example and have the girls watch us.
When we got there after dinner there weren't a lot of people waiting, which was nice because I knew the kids would not wait patiently for long. Josh and I took turns so one of us could stay with the kids while the other went in to answer the questions with the nurse. Then he went first to get his blood drawn. I sat with the girls and waited until he was finished to make sure he would be okay to watch them for my turn. The girls were quite interested, and the nurses set them up with a little chair beside him so they could watch. After a couple minutes I noticed he was starting to look pale and I could tell he didn't really want the kids all up in his face. He started taking some deep breaths, which alerted his nurse, and she reclined his chair. Apparently he had to stop his donation then, before he had donated the full unit. He sat in the chair for a few minutes and then felt better. Then it was my turn. My nurse preemptively reclined my chair, and I felt fine the whole time I was donating. I got up after and joined Josh and the girls at the refreshment area and had some juice. Then I started to feel a little hot. I asked Josh to get me one of the cold cloths they use on your forehead. A nurse came over and told me to put my head on the table while they went a got a stretcher for me to lie on. I started feeling nauseated, and happily took them up on their offer of the stretcher. Josh took the kids over to the park next door at this point because I didn't want to traumatize them. After a few minutes of fanning and some cold cloths I felt like I could sit up again. As soon as I sat up, though, I was not okay. It was unfortunate because we had walked there, and although it wasn't far to walk home, there was no way I would make it back. Josh came back and I asked him if he could go get the car to drive me home, but he said he didn't think he could lift the kids into their carseats (the nurse had somewhat butchered his arm), and he didn't feel confident to drive, either. So, we tried a few more times to sit me up, but my postural blood pressure was only about 90/60 or something. The clinic was over by this point, and I had been lying down for over half an hour. I'm sure the nurses just wanted to go home, so they decided I should go to the hospital for an IV. It seemed unnecessary and was fairly embarrassing, but I didn't want to hold them up. :/
So Josh took the kids home and put them to bed, and I got to go on a very boring vacation to the hospital, where I wasn't seen for over an hour, and by then I felt fine, so I just walked home. Ridiculous.
That awkward moment when you try to teach your kids to do a good thing and then you end up going to the hospital and in the morning they get up and say, "I didn't think you would be here. I thought you would still be at the hospital." UGH (She still remembers the incident.) :(
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