Give Blood

“The routine is fairly easy. I talk with the nurses first, and they ask questions to make sure you’re OK to donate. Then they ask me what arm I usually donate with and I tell them right, and they look at my right arm and ask me if I’ve been drinking water. I tell them yes, but they ask to see my left arm. After looking at that arm, they always go back to my right arm. I’m correct every time in telling the nurses to use my right arm, but they always question it first, and check my left arm before concluding that I simply have very small veins. I usually have low energy for the rest of the day after donating, and often times my arm bruises from the needle insertion site because the nurse had to move the needle around to find my tiny veins.”

“I recently gave blood for the first time in a decade, I was prompted by a friend who was in treatment for Leukemia and when asked what I could do to help was asked to give blood. I took my 4-year old son and it was actually a really fun experience for us to have together, the staff loved him and gave him an honorary volunteer vest. [...] To put it simply – giving blood is weird and a little gross, but it’s an amazing thing you can do and Canadian Blood Service does a fantastic job of making it fun.”