On Bleeding

I gave blood this past Friday.I'll be honest and say that I was kinda freaked out by it. I don't like needles and I don't like pain and I really don't like this idea of them "missing" your vain. But never the less, here's my experience. I didn't get the chance to go do it until around third block, so about 1pm. I left my third block class since we weren't doing anything and made my way to the big gym. When I walked in I saw people lying in weird reclining chairs and my first thought was of Sweeney Todd and the chair that drops all the dead people to the basement.....Anyway, since I was a first time donor I had to fill out a lot of paper work and answer several questions. The lady at the desk was sorta rude, but maybe she was just tired or something. After the paper work I went to the next booth and they asked more questions. They were sorta worried about my several trips down to Juarez but it turned out that everything was fine. After that this lady pricked my finger to see if my iron level was good enough to donate blood and to make sure I wasn't anemic. Everything was great, I'm in good health and so I moved on to the final stage and sat down in the Sweeney Todd chair. The women who was going to take my blood was a large, black woman with several gold teeth (one of which had a cross imprint). She was an interesting character but she was very nice and she made me feel comfortable. That is until she couldn't find my vain....apparently my veins are really deep. It took forever to find it! I spent several minutes squeezing the stress ball, and she kept making the tourniquet thing tighter and tighter. Finally it popped up and she went to grab the blood bag and tubes and things and when she got back the darn vain had disappeared again. I nervously made jokes to try and lighten my mood but at this point I was really freaking out. All I could think about was that she would have trouble finding my vain and that she would miss and it would hurt a lot! I kind of cried, not a lot but a few nervous tears. She finally found the vain again and then put the needle in and the blood was flowing. It really wasn't that bad, in fact the finger prick before had hurt worse. However, I looked over before she had covered it up and it was pretty gross looking. I could see my skin and then a needle sticking out of it....eww. I had to continue to squeeze the stress ball to keep the blood flow going. This got increasingly difficult because my arm had fallen asleep and it was tingly feeling. In fact it continued to get worse and that needle feeling started on my finger tips! That was the worst part about the whole process. I could also feel the blood pulsing out of my body. It was like feeling your heart beat, but you know that its your blood instead. I started to get a little light headed but they put a wash cloth on my head and gave me some powerade and I felt much better. Aside from the asleep arm feeling the other worst part was that I was freezing to death! My Sweeney Todd chair was right in front of the open doors to the outside. Over all though it was a good experience and I would surely do it again.