Otterman
31st March 2005, 04:17 PM
For several years now, I have been donating plasma. It started one morning when a nurse expressed great satisfaction with my veins and the fact I was an O+ donor. After that donation session, she introduced me to the plasteletphereisis machine whihc was then housed in the area now occupied by the Red Cross offices.
So I switched to plateletphereisis, but my second donation was halted prematurely - they had confirmed my platelet count was too low and did not want to risk it. Apparently it's only enough for myself, but too low for donation. How disappointing!
Then I was faced with another problem - as I began spending lots of time in forests and mangroves in Southeast Asia, I had to wait 6 weeks before donating, even without consuming anti-malarials. This was allow time for any viral or bacterial-infection to express itself and prevent wasting a donation. However, since I was always going back into forests before 6 weeks was up, it seemed like all the waiting periods would connect into one long waiting period lasting several years!
Luckily, plasmaphereisis allowed me to still make a contribution. So I spent many a comfortable hour whikle a machine harvested 600ml bycentrifuging my blood, siphoning off the plasma and returning the cells.
Recently, I stopped visiting regional forests and in fact, have not travelled for more than six months. Last night, after checking the preferred blood donation type list at the HSA site, I realised an O+ person like myself should be donating whole blood.
So I went for my first whole blood donation session this morning, after more than at least 5 years! And before I could settle in, it was all over! I had forgotten how fast it was.
So I switched to plateletphereisis, but my second donation was halted prematurely - they had confirmed my platelet count was too low and did not want to risk it. Apparently it's only enough for myself, but too low for donation. How disappointing!
Then I was faced with another problem - as I began spending lots of time in forests and mangroves in Southeast Asia, I had to wait 6 weeks before donating, even without consuming anti-malarials. This was allow time for any viral or bacterial-infection to express itself and prevent wasting a donation. However, since I was always going back into forests before 6 weeks was up, it seemed like all the waiting periods would connect into one long waiting period lasting several years!
Luckily, plasmaphereisis allowed me to still make a contribution. So I spent many a comfortable hour whikle a machine harvested 600ml bycentrifuging my blood, siphoning off the plasma and returning the cells.
Recently, I stopped visiting regional forests and in fact, have not travelled for more than six months. Last night, after checking the preferred blood donation type list at the HSA site, I realised an O+ person like myself should be donating whole blood.
So I went for my first whole blood donation session this morning, after more than at least 5 years! And before I could settle in, it was all over! I had forgotten how fast it was.