Long Day is Over

I am back home resting and still watching Lost. Maybe some Gossip Girl, Mad Men, and Weeds for good measure. The time passed surprisingly quickly. I started the day when they opened and it was pretty quiet and calm. When I returned from breakfast to start to donation, the place was already bustling. By 4pm, everyone had come and gone and I was still in that chair. The nurses were amazing and Inja made the whole process relatively painless and easy.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I had some entertaining and helpful visitors. Scott was there, of course, to help get going and chat while watching Lost. Then my thoughtful mother-in-law paid me a visit, helped me eat lunch and even brought me a milkshake! She and Scott went out for lunch so he got a break and I took a little nap. Then, Audra came by and the day was over before we knew it. We treated ourselves to a little faux Pinkberry afterwards and headed home.

If you are really curious about the process, I also took pictures of the tubes in my arms and would be glad to send them to you but I'll save the majority of you that don't want that level of detail.

The Process -- if you are squeamish, skip this part
This is the machine they used to separate the blood cells. They drew blood from my left arm and ran the tubes through here, then into the centrifuge where the blood-forming cells were separated and collected in a bag labeled "volunteer donor." Then, they mixed the remainder with a saline solution and calcium citrate and sent it back into my right arm. It felt warm going in and by the afternoon I was like a toddler taking a nap-- blankets kicked off and a sweaty head (not to be confused with my nephew's air band, The Sweaty Men).


If you look closely at all the tubes running through the machine, you can actually see my blood running through the tubes and two vials in the middle toward the bottom. I didn't get to see it in the centrifuge, but Scott did and thought it was pretty cool.

I couldn't move my left arm for about 6 hours, so Inja gave me a cow stress ball to squeeze. She intended it to help me pump when I needed to, but I kept it all day so that I could fidget without moving my whole arm.

I'll save my favorite part (the final product) for the next post.

Now back to reclining day...