LETS DONATE BLOOD

I had my end of posting exam today for ENT. Can't believe one month is over! I think I did OK today. My clinical evaluations and my practice was OK. But I'm still worried. I don't know.

Anyway, few days back there was blood donation drive in the college. Out of minimum of 400 students, only 80-90 came up to donate blood! That's quite surprisingly not very good. Since we all are in a medical team and well, not many of us are interested in donating blood. I wanted to donate blood so badly and I was so happy that they finally came to our college for the drive. But when I got there and got my blood checked, my Hemoglobin is low. Well, it's not that low, only that they wanted a minimum of 12.5 and mine was 12.4!

I got so sad that I couldn't take part in it :( so I tried my luck again that night just in case if I could make it and well, not my day I guess, the second time I had it checked, it came down to 11.8 :(

Well, in case if any of you see a blood donation activity taking place nearby, you might want to take part too. Everyday someone depends on blood for life. They are needed for surgery, accident victims, or to help treat people with LEUKEMIA, cancer, heart and liver diseases and even HEMOPHILIA. Your contribution could help save a life!

Only about 450ml of blood will be withdrawn from you. Our total blood volume is about 5L. And 450 is less than 10%. So this will not make you feel different without the blood you donated. Most people feel great after donating blood too. You just have to be sure that you have had good meal before donating and that you have had enough rest the day before. Having enough rest and food makes a big difference in how you will feel afterwards.

It takes about 24 hours for your body to replace the blood volume. You should drink extra 4 glasses of water or non alcoholic fluid. Do not carry heavy liftings with your arm for 5 hours. And your body needs 4-8 weeks to replace the red blood cells before you can donate again.

So why don't we all lift up the spirit of helping others by taking part in a blood donation drive. I had fun the first time I donated. I'm just going to wait a little more till I can correct my hemoglobin level higher and then I'll look forward into donating blood again :)