Blood Donation Project

I have never donated blood before.

I personally have never thought of it, so as I start this assignment I am asking myself why have I never even thought of donating before? Is it the lack of advertising, my lack of time, my selflessness or laziness? To be honest looking back on it now it was probably a combination of everything.

As a relatively young person (22) with not having encountered a serious medical problem with myself or any of my close family , thank god, I don’t think I realise the importance of good health yet I just take it all for granted . I think that when topics such as organ donation, blood donation and other serious medical topics are mentioned they go through my head just as words. I hear the words but I never mentally put a minute of thought into the actual topic.

Now by doing this project I am actually mentally thinking of all aspects of blood donation. The actual process of blood donation and the benefits other people will get from that blood.

As part of this project I will be given blood in the next few days. The more I am thinking about the process the more nervous I am getting. I am constantly thinking of the needles piercing my skin but what is making me most nervous about the situation is wondering what it will feel like when the blood is being extracted from me. Will it be cold? Will I be physically in pain?

I wanted to write this part of my assessment before I donated for a number of reasons. I think after I donate blood I will have a biased view on the situation, weather it will be positively in favour of donating or if I did not enjoy the experience it would somewhat tilt towards a negative start to this assignment.

I think the statistics of how many lives my blood could potentially save i...

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... the procedure as a single entity again but I will think of the procedure as a part of the whole experience. An experience that I am sure I will take part in again, not just to help others, but to also brighten up my own day.

Over the past weeks through given the blood donation, lectures I have attended and research I have carried out, I learnt a considerable amount about the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, the blood collection process and the overall importance of the blood that is donated. I learnt that my blood doesn’t just help people in accidence but also that the platelets can assist people that have cancer while also saving new-born babies. I also learnt that given blood is not tough, hard or scary but the overall experience is a positive one. Above all the fact that my blood can save life’s is by far the utmost critical fact I learnt from the past weeks.