Gotta give it up for the B negs out there
Yesterday I gave blood. It was a very blood oriented day in general now that I think about it. I went over blood typing in two of my classes and then actually had it removed from my body. I had a long break between my classes and they had a blood drive at school so I figured what the hell. I've got a pretty rare blood type so I feel it's my responsibility to put my blood out there for people that might need it.
While I was filling out the paperwork I was asked if I might be interested in double red count donation. This is similar to a regular donation except they remove your blood and then centrifuge it at 15k rpms to seperate the red blood cells. The plasma is then reinjected back into your body with some saline solution. They do this twice so that they get 2x the red blood cells, which can be added to generic plasma.
The weird part is that this is all operated by a machine. There are several phases which tubes coming from my arm are cleared of fluid or the flow is changed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous about a huge bubble of air being injected directly into my vein by some diabolical blood sucking machine.
I'll have to remember to do it more often though because it's fun to see blood pouring out of your body into a bag.
While I was filling out the paperwork I was asked if I might be interested in double red count donation. This is similar to a regular donation except they remove your blood and then centrifuge it at 15k rpms to seperate the red blood cells. The plasma is then reinjected back into your body with some saline solution. They do this twice so that they get 2x the red blood cells, which can be added to generic plasma.
The weird part is that this is all operated by a machine. There are several phases which tubes coming from my arm are cleared of fluid or the flow is changed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous about a huge bubble of air being injected directly into my vein by some diabolical blood sucking machine.
I'll have to remember to do it more often though because it's fun to see blood pouring out of your body into a bag.