Give Us Your Fooking Bloooood!

This morning dawned bright and clear, with a fresh dusting of snow on the ground, and I thought, "I should totally go and give blood today, how hard can it be?" So I picked up my trusty camera and off I toddled to the blood bank. And this is how it works.

First of all, they check your name, address and date of birth, then give you a form to fill in. Well, I say "fill in", actually it's just tick yes or no in a lot of few boxes.



Next, they prick your finger to get a drop of blood and drop that into a solution of copper sulphate to see how long it takes to sink. This tells them you probly don't have enough iron in your blood to donate any today.



Then they wheel in a trolley, whip out a syringe and take about a fingerful of blood to do a more precise measurement. But they don't take it out of your finger, obv, 'cause that would leave it empty. No, they take it from the inside of your elbow. Then they get you to hold a swab over the hole while they run that test, so you can't hold the camera, sigh.

Finally, they tell you that the minimum level of iron they need is 135, but yours is only 132, so if you'd been a woman that would be ok (so I should have gone ahead with that operation after all) but as it is you can have a free non-alcoholic beverage and a handful of biscuits and then come back in three months when you're fit enough to give blood.

Easy peasy!