blood drawing today

[Guest guest]

I went to have my stored blood taken today. They do a little mini

physical and said my blood pressure was too high to even consider

drawing it. She has just stuck me in the side of the finger to get

a blood level, which hurt like heck. Then the blood pressure cuff

squeezed my arm until it was about the size of a straw.......what

would you expect my blood pressure to be??? So I was instructed

to sit and relax for 15 minutes and then she would take it

manually. It was fine then. So then she starts to look for a

vein and could not find one in either arm. Went and hunted up

to help her. He tried for 10 minutes.....then another lady

thought she could find one.......she gave up and came back.

He was about to give up and found a faint one....asked me what

I thought. So I said try it. He finally stuck me and found nothing.

He moved the needle around for about 10 minutes with no results.

Another couple ladies tried. Then another thought to go back to

the other arm and gave up too. Then finally struck oil.

After more wiggling and me pumping he got the measurement in the

bag up to 402......needed it at 440 to be a whole unit......then it

stopped flowing totally. After trying another 5 minutes he gave up.

It had been over an hour and a half at this point. When he took

the needle out, he pulled a long blood clot out with it. It was

about an inch and a half long. So I guess I have a good clotting

factor. My daughter is going in next week to give a unit so that

I will have some waiting for me. He didn't know how much they

would get out of my donation. They can only use about a quarter

of what they draw. What a day. What should have been a

15 minute procedure drew out into 2 hours. Have any of you had

trouble donating before? In my father's lifetime he donated over

25 gallons of blood and I can't even give a whole unit......I bet

he is laughing right now.......BARB in Florida