The First Donor Experience

     Yesterday turned out to be quite an interesting experience for me.  Here at
work, a  blood drive was going on and I figured that I had never donated blood
before, I might as well give it a try.  As I was a total amateur about the whole
thing, I ate a pretty light breakfast before going to work, and because of how some
of my workload played out here, my donation appointment came up before I was able
to take lunch, which was part of original plan: take lunch, then come back and go
to my appointment.
    So the time has come and I head out to the bus...

The paperwork and stuff was the longest part of the process, (and I'm still
wondering why it matters if I had spent a total of 5 years in Europe between 1980
and 1997 and why it's limited to just those years), and it was off to the table to
get poked.  The donation itself went just fine, (the extraction of the needle was a
little fast and borderline violent), and I was led to the front of the bus where
there is a little bench and some snacks available for recovery.  They had told me
to spend about 15 minutes or so there, which I thought was going to be a little too
long because I already felt just fine.  However, I was still unsure about how my
body would react to this new experience, so I took the workers' advice and planned
to pop a squat on the recovery bench for the whole 15 minutes.  The next thing to
happen is still a little "Twilight Zone" to me.
    At first my vision started to go a little blurry and I started to get dizzy,
I'll just play out the conversation that I had in my head with myself:

    "Whoa, feeling a little dizzy here."
    "That's fine, the paper they gave you said that could happen."
    "Oh man...Now I am feeling really nauseous."
    "No worries, the paper said that could happen too."
    "Dude, I can't puke in front of these people, that would be embarrassing!"
    "Just chill out! Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Stay calm, because 

if you freak yourself out too much you are going to puke."

    So I closed my eyes and began to take long, deep breaths and just tried to stay
calm.  Due to the fact that a couple nights before I had not gotten to bed at a
reasonable hour, I was feeling pretty tired too.  As far as I knew, I dozed off and
actually began to have a dream.  What apparently happened....

When I opened my eyes, I remember that it seemed weird that my vision took
several seconds to recover, and it was a gray, blurry process.  I remembered that I
was slightly slumped over in my seat, which didn't seem weird considering that I
had just fallen asleep.  When I looked up though, I was met by the sight of all the
phlebotomists in the bus surrounding me with the look of "HOLY CRAP" on their face.
 I was totally taken off guard by this and was even more confused when one of them
asked if I was okay. I answered that I was, and in fact I felt just fine then, but
it turns out that I had passed out and a lady sitting next to me had to catch me to
keep me from sliding off the bench.  So, they had me lay back down on one of the
tables and gave me all sorts of snacks and juice to get my blood sugar levels up to
a level that would keep me conscious again.
   
    Probably not the best first experience to have, but definitely not the worse.  I want to give donating blood another try, and next time try to think a little more about my meal choices/amounts before I go in. :P