3rd Time's a Charm!

I went to the Red Cross around 7:30 Saturday morning to donate platelets. After sitting in the waiting room for a good half hour due to employee miss communication it was time to test my iron (downfall of 1st platelet donation attempt). I passed with flying colors this time around... yee-ha! At this point I was keeping my fingers crossed that the machine would work properly (downfall of attempt #2). Right after my arm was marked, I heard the familiar sound of a malfunctioning machine...bing, bing, bing.

This is not my machine, but it's fairly similar.

Good thing I wasn't hooked up already! They had to chuck the apheresis kit and get me a new one. It's a prepackaged kit with all the tubes, bags, etc. for this interesting little procedure. I got hooked up and the pumping and spinning started. As people say, my blood took a little spin. Out one tube, spin through the machine, in with another tube. I had three tubes laying on my lap behind the DVD player I was watching. It was quite odd to see my blood passing behind screen.

It was a pretty cool experience and I look forward to doing it again. It left me a bit tired on Saturday, but I think it was mostly the worry factor about it all going well. I feel fine and dandy today. Did I mention I had by chocolate milk and vanilla sandwhich cookies after giving? Mmm...mmm...good!

These are not my platelets... I didn't want to seem odd taking photos of all the tubes, bags, and machine.