- It's healthy 'cause it forces the body to produce fresh blood
- It saves lives! One bag of blood can save 3 lives!!
- It makes mochi feel brave :P
After filling out a bunch of forms, they checked for iron level, heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature - all PASS. Next is today's "feature presentation" - drawing blood. Since Mochi is a first time donor, people in the blood center were extra careful and nice :P The nurse carefully searched for Mochi's veins on both left and right arm and decided to use Mochi's right arm because the veins are easier to find there. After the needle when in, the nurse started the timer to time how long it takes to fill up the 500 mL bag. The nurse also took a bunch of blood to perform blood tests. After a few seconds, the nurse realized that Mochi's blood was flowing out too slowly. So, she gave me a warm pad to hold in my hand and asked me to squeeze my hand continuously as blood was being drawn.
(15 minutes passed)
Phew~ Finally, the bag is FULL. The nurse came to take the needle out of my arm. She said the average time it takes to draw 1 bag of blood is 10 minutes. Bear only took 5 minutes to fill up a bigger bag ^^" So, I guess Mochi's blood was slow :P
Didn't realize that losing 500 mL of blood is something the body needs to adjust to get used to, Mochi stood up too quickly. For about 15 minutes, Mochi was feeling dizzy and vision became a bit blurry; but, Mochi was fine after cookies and juice :)
It was a good experience. Somebody in the world is probably using portions of Mochi's blood now. I think I'll do it again :) Maybe next time, Mochi can convince Onion to donate with me :P
Before we left, we got a sticker that says "Be nice to me, I donated blood today". So, when we went shopping for the BBQ party tomorrow, Onion had to carry everything :P
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