Quote:
Originally Posted by A930Rocket
I’ve probably given 5 gallons of blood over the years. I don’t know why, but I always hold the bag of blood before they take it away. It’s weird to feel the warmth and weight of it.
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Geezer voice "Back in the old days of Apheresis donation the used both arms! So I had a needle stuck in both arms, and I could not even scratch my nose. It took 90 minutes, so they would play a movie for me of my choice on the VCR. So one arm fed a machine that separated the component in the blood they needed, and they pumped back in the stuff they did not need into my other arm. Now it is just one arm for both so it has gotten better." End geezer voice. I got a free T-shirt, and some cookies as my payment.
I have donated 6 gallons total over the years. Then they had a false positive for Chagas disease. They tested it again on the spot, and it was negative. But one false positive was enough for them to ban me from donating. A few years later a hematologist doctor was doing a study on Chagas disease and he asked me to come in and have some blood drawn for more testing, and they asked me to bring one of my neighbors. We both had blood drawn, and the CDC and an independent lab tested our blood and of course found no evidence of Chagas. One false positive, and I am off the list. They asked my neighbor come in as a control to make sure it was not something endemic to our neighborhood. He has lived here for 30+ years and I am the FNG at 26 years.