I vaguely remember a topic like this some time ago but I searched back a few pages and didn't see it. If I'm wrong and it's there or this is a **** topic, just yell at me :o

Anyway, today was a big first for me. Every two months the "Life Bus" comes to my high school, picks up a bunch of eligible blood donors and ships them off to the donation clinic. In Canada you have to be 17 years old to go, which means I've been eligible for almost six months, but the last time the Life Bus came around I was home sick with a throat infection. Today was the first trip after summer holidays and I was actually literally the first to sign up. It's not too bad -- I got to school, checked in with home room and then was bused across the city where I was asked awkward questions about my sex life, poked with a needle and then fed diet Coke and Nutrigrains.

It was a really good experience and something I'm definitely going to continue with. One of the nurses pointed to the other side of the wall that divided the clinic in half at the plasma donors. She said they may as well be a weekly club; the same eight or nine of them come every Friday and donate plasma together. She said it's like that for every day of the week. I had the pleasure of talking to one of the long-time weekly plasma donors (he's almost at 600 donations) and it was quite inspiring. He said he was over 70 years old and one of the only people he knows his age still healthy enough to donate.

It's just a great thing to do, I think. I think what I'll do is sign up for the Life Bus until I graduate and, if there's a clinic near my university, keep going. I'm still wearing the "1" pin they gave me for donating blood for the first time, but I'd like to see that 1 with a couple more zeros on the end.

Have any of you ever given blood? Whole blood, platelets, plasma? I made up my mind years ago that as soon as I got my driver's license I'd sign my organ donor card, too. I can live with a sore arm for a few hours and a signature on a piece of paper if it's going to save God knows how many lives. The nurses at the clinic told me that each whole blood donation saves, on average, about 3 lives. I can donate blood every 56 days; that means in a year I could save 19 lives.

What do you guys think?

I am a blood donor, yes. At the high school I went too, every few months, the local bloodcenter would come and set up a blood drive in our library. Anyone 16 or older (16 year olds had to have permission slips signed) could sign up to donate whole blood or do platelets. I did whole blood every time.

I actually have a donor card, so now if I went to the same blood center, they could just scan my card and they would have all my info already on their systems. I do feel good knowing that I am helping save a handful of lives every time I donate, and I think it's more than worth the couple seconds of pain.

Also, I'm A positive.

You can request for them to tell you your blood type. They might also send you a card in the mail with your blood type, like they did for me.

If you want to know without donating, your blood type should also be on your official birth certificate, IIRC.

Yeah, needles can be scary... but once I started donating, I lost any intimidation needles used to give me.

I bought a DIY blood typing kit online a few months back and that's how I learned my blood type. They also told me it'd be on my blood donor card when I get it in the mail (yeah, same as you R_R, this way it's much simpler to donate) but it's not on my birth certificate. It'd be kind of cool if it was, though D:

It's a little anxiety causing but that's all. When the nurse brought me to that little room to interrogate me about sex/drugs I got really anxious so when she checked my vitals my pulse was really high (about 100). She kind of laughed, asked me if I was nervous and said that they get that a lot with first time donors.

I'm fine with needles and vaccinations so I didn't really have any problem at all with this. I did feel kind of woozy yesterday though.

I personally couldn't do it. I'm not horribly afriad of needles, but I do panic a little when I see one (hate getting cavities filled/root canals because of the freakin' shots). Last year I had a major Mono scare and had to get blood drawn like every month for tests, and that was like a nightmare for me. It's admirable that you guys can go through this, but I couldn't.

Well, that's for health and safety regulation reasons, not because they didn't like you.

And yeah, I may be fine with getting needles stuck in me, but if I don't have a soda that has sugar in it to drink during the blood withdrawal, I pass out afterwards. The first time I donated, I got halfway back to the table and collapsed. But once they gave me a Coca Cola, I felt fine. Every time after that I asked if they could give me a Coke ahead of time to drink during the blood drawing process.

While I understand the principles behind giving blood I've never been able to bring myself to give blood for a couple of reasons. One being that over the past couple of years the NHS have taken enough of my blood to fill a warehouse and the second I'm not comfortable with being essentially harvested. Sounds selfish I know but I prefer my bodily fluids where they are.

@Saint_Jimmy: Really? Here you're only disqualified if you've had sex with somebody who has either a) had sex with a man, b) tested positive for HIV or c) has an unknown sexual history. Drugs only disqualify you if you've injected them with a needle. Then again, this is Canada and if you removed "pot-smokers" from the list of acceptable donors you'd be down to about 2% of our total population. I remember a guy I was donating with was joking about the survey answers (stuff about handling monkeys etc) and he's like, "I smoked pot in grade 9. Should I tell them? Like it was in grade nine but should I tell them?" and being all worried about it. He did and it was fine. :|

@R_R: Really, you passed out? D: That's awful. It's quite admirable you still go back, though. Here if you take 8 minutes to draw (which I did) you have to wait 8 minutes before you're allowed to even sit up. Then you have to walk about 15 feet to the "cookie table" where a volunteer gets you a drink and some cookies.

I can't, because I'm so scared of needles, and of losing my blood.
I understand the concpet, and I admire people who can, but I'll stick with the helping out rather than the blood giving.
Also I think my blood type is like, AB-, which can't really be given to people EXCEPT for other ABs, who can accept blood from most anyone (depending on pos neg).
So I don't think it's that huge of a loss, which justifies it it in my mind.

You can't pay for sex either.

AB+, universal blood receiver, universal platelet donor.

I haven't donated in a while. It's annoying to see how many pussies there are.

You obviously haven't been to the right convenience stores yet. And don't call everyone who doesn't donate blood a *****. I doubt my one blood donation could save the planet, so no one is at a huge loss if I don't show up. And people experience irrational fears of things they just can't get over, and a fear of needles is one of the biggest ones I've ever heard of. That and clowns.

lol... what?

If everybody had your mentality then... people would die a lot more often. It doesn't matter where you live and frankly I don't even care enough to scroll down and see if you have it listed but seriously, what the ****? "I'm just one person so I don't matter"... WELL YEAH THE PEOPLE WHO DONATE PLASMA ONCE A WEEK ARE JUST SINGLE PEOPLE THEMSELVES. How the **** is that even an excuse?! I've never ever heard that before for anything like charities or blood banks or organ donation before. What the hell? :|

I'm really, really afraid of heights. I mean, I stand on a two step ladder at work to stock the high shelves and I can't eat for a few hours. If I had to stand on top of a ladder for 16 minutes to save THREE LIVES, I think I'd do it. Don't be a douchebag. And don't be all WELL THAT'S YOU because yeah, that IS me, and I'm afraid of anything. I DON'T take risks, I just don't. I hold the railing and the wall when I walk up the stairs because I'm so afraid of falling. Pretty sure if I can handle it, somebody can handle a needle in their arm for a few minutes.

I mean how **** insensitive is that?

"Hey Jamie, you can save three lives today."
"Yo awesome sign me up."
"Wait, you'll feel a slight pinch for about 15 minutes. That okay?"
"**** NO THREE LIVES ARE NOT WORTH THAT"