I had problems the first time.  It was a little better the second time, but it still wasn’t good.  Once when Barb and I were driving by the Red Cross Donation center I pointed it out to her and said that was where she could pick up my body if they managed to kill me.  She didn’t think my joke was nearly as funny as I did.

This morning I donated for the third time.  The nurses/technicians seemed to recognize me and remember notes they had made on me from months ago (I think the last time was October). Not a good sign I suppose.  They started out really slow and gave me lots of Tums (for the calcium which mitigates the problems with the anti-coagulants) but after a few minutes I started having the tingling in my lips and they slowed things down even more and gave me more Tums.  Every 30 minutes or so it would happen again.  Then I started sneezing.  One of the people came over and asked if I just wanted to call it quits.  I said it was just allergies.  She said it was one of the symptoms.  I only had about another 20 minutes left and I said to go ahead and finish up.  I made it through and as I was being disconnected they told me that it would be best if I didn’t try to donate again.  She thanked me for persisting but said it’s hard on me physically and probably mentally as well.  Some people don’t have problems with donations of any type, some donate whole blood without any problems (I am one) and can’t donate platelets and some people can donate platelets but have problems with whole blood.  She recommended I stick with just donating whole blood.  I’m okay with that and, of course, so is Barb.