14.4

Yesterday was the anticipated blood donation day that I had been preparing myself for after the last attempt.
Preparing myself as in eating beans, spinach, oatmeal, peanut butter, drinking juice and taking an iron supplement. I can and will say this much right now; I'm ready to give my digestive system a rest!

Make a long story short, the necessary hemoglobin levels for females are 12.1- 15.1 and I tested at 14.4!!

HUGE improvement!

12 minutes and 9 seconds later I was down a pint of blood, feeling a little woozy but so happy!
Average donation time? 7- 10 minutes. Again, goes to show I am everything but average!

I'll still continue to keep up with my iron enriched foods and supplements along with drinking juice to help with absorption because I plan on going back in 56 days.

crazy-hectic

So much has happened since the last time I blogged I don’t even know where to start. So I’ll try to recap the best I can.

My best friend, Amanda, of 9 years is moving. To Massachusetts. That is an easy 5 hour drive from here. Yea, I’m sure this topic will be a future blog post. This is sudden, she didn’t give much warning.

Remember those concert tickets I received for Christmas? Well FINALLY! The time came to see Sugarland and Matt Nathanson perform. What a show! Amazing!!
Amanda and I took a weekend road trip to New Hampshire for the concert. The experience and memories will be with us forever.

On our way back home we stopped to meet fellow bloggers, Badass Geek and his wife The Boss. It was really nice to meet up with them for part of the afternoon. It’s refreshing to meet people whom you don’t have to explain what a “blog” is or why you do it. We had things to talk about since we already had some background information about each other; I mean we tell the world already about our lives. I hope to meet up with them again in the future, they’re a great couple.

My Dad figured out how to text message. To watch him show me his new phone, which takes pictures, was absolutely adorable, then to receive a text message from him several hours later was even better. This is amazing progress for the man who says, “he’s getting old.” He’s 55 today. Happy birthday Dad!

The American Red Cross called me, I’m going to try to donate blood tomorrow and hope that this doesn’t happen again. I’ve been trying to eat foods with lots of iron and drinking juice with calcium at the same time to help with absorption. Blood supplies are always low during summer months.

I had to make a phone call to the financial aid office about my award package which means school is too damn close, as in next week. Not excited. At all.

Boy Child starts school next week. I haven’t started school shopping for him yet because he won’t stop growing. He’s crazy tall for his age and I’m not buying clothes for 2 different sized kids when I only have one child.

I cannot wait for him to go back to school! His mind is turning to mush! Boy Child and his neighbor friend are constantly bickering and my house is literally an army battle field; toys everywhere! During the school year both kids are so busy during the week they don’t see each other often and on weekends mine is off visiting his dad. Looking forward to having routine, structure and at least some of my sanity back!

I received some blogging awards that I need to desperately catch up on. If it wasn’t for the last minute I wouldn’t get anything done.

I just recently started cruising etsy. Love it! I’m trying to find my Mom a piece of jewelry, just because.

I witnessed a car accident in front of The Compound yesterday. Helping the accident victims and waiting for those sirens just brought on a whole different feeling within me. I’m glad everybody is ok, especially the children.

Things have been crazy hectic but I really wouldn’t want it any other way. I hope everyone else is doing great. So tell me, anything crazy and hectic going on in your world?

Blood Donation: epic fail

Only I didn't get to make a difference and this deeply bothers me.

Let me give you a little background. I have an awesome blood type: O negative.
The American Red Cross loves me. Everyone loves me; or at least they should. I am a universal donor. Should a blood transfusion be needed, potentially any person can receive type O negative blood regardless of their blood type. Amazing!

Blood donation is one of the greatest gifts you could ever give. If you have never given you should really look into it, get over your fear of needles and just do it. Be selfless, give about an hour of your time, and help save a life. Blood, platelets, and/or plasma are used for accident victims, kidney/liver/heart transplants, premature babies, bone marrow transplants, open heart surgeries, cancer/leukemia treatments, sickle cell anemia even severe burns.
An accident victim could require 4-100 units of blood; your donation only covers 1 unit.
A severe burn patient could require 8 units of plasma, again your donation only covers 1 unit.
A premature baby could require 1-4 units while in intensive care.

**

Yesterday was my day to donate! I was all ready to go. I even bring Boy Child, despite his protest. Blood makes his "tummy feel funny" but I want him to see how important this is. Maybe someday we'll be able to save a life together.
So I get to the blood drive that was set up in my town, sign in, fill out the paper work and get my rockin' name tag (see above).
Once my name was called I went into the closed off booth to answer the repetitive questions and have my hemoglobin checked.
Hemoglobin is a protein carried by the red blood cells that contains iron.
Medical term for low hemoglobin? Anemia
In order to donate you must have a hemoglobin level of 13.8-17.2 for males and 12.1-15.1 for females.
I have the little finger prick done, blood sample put in the machine and we wait....

...and wait...

LLL

LLL? Seriously!?

The guy looks at me and says "Wow! Its not even registering, that's low"

I sat there completely stunned. I take a 65mg iron supplement everyday on top of a multivitamin due to my absorption issues with gastric bypass and also because I went the vegetarian route back in December.

How could this be?

I have to sign a form saying I've been deferred; please wait 12 weeks before you try again. Here are some dietary advisements, get healthy and have a great day.

I felt like I was just told my dog died. (I don't have a dog but whatever)

I'm torn. I gave up meat for many reasons but I'm also very pro-active about blood donation. I'm even an organ donor, well not yet obviously!
If me consuming meat again is going to save a life then is it worth it? Am I risking my health right now? I'm obviously not doing something right. I thought I was consuming enough foods that would keep me healthy; keep us healthy. If my levels are low Boy Child's levels must be also.

Consume an animal to keep us healthy and help save a life every 56 - 112 days, depending if I'm donating whole blood or double red cells (which they want these from me too) or continue on this road, which has yet to be determined but I don't think it looks promising.

**

Do your part, go donate and help save lives!

I'm off to "get healthy!"