I am truly honored. I hope every blood donation I gave was able to help save a life. I always wonder about how the recipients are doing, and what circumstances led them to need a life saving blood transfusion. The blood bank keeps all of that private for security reasons, of course, along with the name of the donors who donate. I just hope it all helped.
I need to start donating blood again, I have donated 27 times in my 36 years, but stopped during the pandemic as I lived a year on painkillers due to messed up feets and knee.
It has been two years since and while I am on high blood preassure meds, I feel fine to donate.
I hope you can donate again soon! The blood bank needs donors. You might want to ask them about your blood pressure medication first. It might be on the medication deferral list.
Oh yeah, there is a long list of questions about your recent medical, sexual and travel history and you are required to answer before you may donate blood.
I did travel to Spain back in March, so I’ll have to check how long I need to wait…
You’re fine. I’ve been to Spain, too, and spent 2022-2023 between France, Ireland, and Scotland. They only care if you traveled to a region with a malaria risk. When I visited Africa I had to take a break from donating blood because my plane landed in Ethiopia to change flights after visiting the Seychelles. Ethiopia is a high risk for Malaria, apparently. Spain should be fine!
I just checked the rules and they seems to have been updated, there used to be a rule for traveling to our neighbours, Norway, Finland and Denmark, and other rules for different parts of Europe, but seems to have been loosened a bit, now it only talks about areas with malaria.
Eh, I’ll find out when I get there.
I hope they still have the lovely colab with a local hospital so you can have them send a teddy bear to a child in hospital rather than get a gift for yourself, you still get pins for giving 10/25/50 times though.
That’s interesting. I didn’t know they had an option to send a gift to a hospitalized child, instead of being given an award. Maybe they do both and they just don’t coordinate it with blood donor awards. I know our local blood banks do a lot for the hospitals.
They also have rules for needle sticks, too. Someone in Ireland ran up to me on the street near the Liffey River, and stuck me in the right upper arm with a sharp. Apparently, gangs of locals try to scare away tourists and travelers who stay too long in their country. I was under a government protection act there, and had to stay longer than a normal passport allows. Anyway, the local hospital did a lot of blood draws on me later to make sure everything was normal. After I returned to America, I read the literature for deferrals on blood donation. They say you have to wait several months after being stuck, or accidentally stuck, with a sharp.
WTF, we have gangs here in Sweden (as you probably have heard), and they are horrible, they build bombs, blow up houses and shoot people, but it is mainly aimed at rival gangs, I have never heard about using needles to attack others, much less outsiders.
And them wanting tourists not to stay too long, do they have a list of how long you have stayed in Ireland?
So many questions…
https://www.thejournal.ie/arson-attacks-fire-asylum-seeker-accommodation-6252984-Feb2024/
I’m still looking for the article that talked about the local protests against immigrants and refugee seekers. Early this year, the locals set a female refugee seeker on fire in the street, in Dublin. Perhaps one of the locals thought I was a Ukrainian refugee when he stuck me with a needle. I’m pale, but I’m actually most of a mix of Scottish and Irish, though. Maybe It was personal. I shave my head. Maybe he hated shaved heads?