pahick, shortly before you go to donate make sure you eat. Don't go in on an empty stomach, I've seen more than one donor hit the floor after donating because they hadn't eaten. A typical donation of whole blood, 1 pint, takes no more than 6 minutes. The screening you go through before you donate will take longer. Once you're in the chair, look away from the needle and relax. I donate every 4-5 weeks as I do apherisis, which is where they take platelets and plasma only and return the rest. I'm usually in the chair about 1 hour. I do it this way because I have the rarest blood type and that way I can help the most people. I have done over 250 donations, 102 of them were whole blood donations. You can do this!
k2nd
