Are you a blood donor?

Ronni

Ronni

Well-known Member
Location
Nashville TN
I am. I have a rare blood type—B neg—and feel a sense of responsibility to donate every 56 days or as close to that as I can manage.
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I can usually find a blood drive near me whether I’m working or home, and figure out how to take an hour (though it doesn’t usually take that long) out of my day to make the donation happen.

what’s your type? Are you a donor?
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I donate when asked by anyone or needed by family, many insurance companies do not pay the cost if you need blood during surgery. It you donate in someone's name then the blood is back in the system, there is no charge to the patient.

I often feel bad after but not as bad as the people who are sick or having surgery. It is a mild inconvenience in the big scheme of things.

PS, I guess I should ask that question, I don't know my blood type!
 
Well, I guess I should get back into it. I'm typical o neg I believe. But since I've got nothing else to do, make myself useful.
 

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I am A Neg, which is fairly rare also. I started donating back in the 70's. We were on a military base and I was 18 years old. I continued to donate up until I developed breast cancer, about 14 years ago. At that time I got conflicting answers on my eligibility to donate. There was some thought that it might spread cancer cells. I honestly don't know if they ever answered that question. I haven't donated since then.
 
I regularly donated until an over-zealous nurse punctured a vein during the procedure. I foolishly told her
to complete the procedure, with the vein pulsing. It took several months for it to repair itself. So .. no more
donations since.
 
Back in 2013 when I had pelvic floor surgery, I did a directed donation so that I had my own blood on hand should there be complications during the surgery. There weren’t so it went into to the system to help someone else.

I’ve also done several directed donations for friends in need, not necessarily for them directly but for a family member in need.

Some techs are better than others. I’ve had needle sticks that I barely felt, and others that made me grip the side of the gurney and grit my teeth as they poked and prodded trying to find the vein. I’ve had the faintest puncture mark, and bruising as big as a saucer.

I’ve occasionally had too low a red count to donate. I tend towards anemia anyway, so I take my B vitamins daily and eat lots of dark leafy greens, legumes and other iron rich foods. If I test just a bit too low I’ll ask them to do another stick because often the second one just squeaks over.

I have no idea how many gallons I’ve donated at this point!
 
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DebraMae said:
I am A Neg, which is fairly rare also.
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My 'supervisor' & I are both A-.......I recall selling some blood once, (Greece, 1963, perhaps), but have never been a donor...mea culpa.

(I do have 'rolling veins'.....doubt that's a technical term.....and it's often difficult for nurses to take samples.)
 
Nemo2 said:
My 'supervisor' & I are both A-.......I recall selling some blood once, (Greece, 1963, perhaps), but have never been a donor...mea culpa.

(I do have 'rolling veins'.....doubt that's a technical term.....and it's often difficult for nurses to take samples.)
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They would call me on occasion when they needed it. I had chemo directly into a vein rather than having to have a port which kind of ruined the veins in that arm and cannot have sticks on the side the lymph nodes came out so they now have trouble sticking me too.
 
Can anyone tell me if this is true.....In the USA, people can get money for selling their blood and or plasma ? In Canada doing that is illegal, and no one here pays for blood products. JimB.
 
jimintoronto said:
Can anyone tell me if this is true.....In the USA, people can get money for selling their blood and or plasma ? In Canada doing that is illegal, and no one here pays for blood products. JimB.
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It’s true here in the US. You don’t get paid for donating, like I do, to the Red Cross, but there are countless plasma centers that pay you.

Plasma for money
 
I quit trying. Almost every time I have tried to donate, there is some reason why they won't take me blood. I have donated exactly one time because of this and found out my blood type is B+.

When I was young and first started working, it was because I didn't weigh enough.
Then it was because my blood pressure was too low. I couldn't give because of this for decades.
Then it was because I didn't have enough iron in my blood.
etc, etc, etc.

Don't bother any longer. :(
 
I'd be glad to donate blood, but I can't do it because I don't meet the weight requirement.
 
I do not donate because when I was in the Vietnam war, I caught what we at the time was called jungle rot, and I was told not to donate. I kept having reoccurrences of it for about twenty-five years after I left Vietnam. I am glad I have not had another reoccurrence of its for about twenty-five years after that.
 
I've donated blood lots of times. When I was in the US Navy, blood banks paid $5 + OJ and cookies. I needed drinking money, so I 'donate' twice on the same day. I lived. But, now, I'm on a bunch of cardiac meds , etc, I'm not sure they'd want my blood?
 
I donated once in the service. One of the guys got good and messed up in a car accident and they put out a call for A+. I haven't since.
 
I will occasionally be unable to donate at my appointment. It’s mostly because my red count is too low in spite of asking them to test it more than once. I tend towards anemia so that’s not surprising, though I am Mi sculptor to eat appropriately to bolster my red count.

Once a tech messed up so badly trying to insert the needle, on both arms, that I was released without having donated. I had saucer sized bruises on both arms after that one!

One time my donation was incomplete. The blood flow slowed and then stopped inexplicably. The tech and the supervisor tried a variety of tricks to get it flowing again, but it wasn’t going to happen. Apparently there are rules prohibiting starting another donation on the same person if the original one is unsuccessful.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I've donated blood lots of times. When I was in the US Navy, blood banks paid $5 + OJ and cookies. I needed drinking money, so I 'donate' twice on the same day. I lived. But, now, I'm on a bunch of cardiac meds , etc, I'm not sure they'd want my blood?
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" now, I'm on a bunch of cardiac meds , etc, I'm not sure they'd want my blood?"

Same here , although I never asked, I'm of the same opinion .... doubt they would want it.

My blood is rare:

Group "O" RH factor R1/R1

Other ... MNs; Fy (a-b+);P/1-,K-k+; Jk(a+b+

I have forgotten what all that means .... But it kept me out of the military back in the day.
 

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