My Curious Eye, 2010 Project 365

065

I donated plasma for the first time today. I brought my camera, but forgot about it until I was hooked up and it was far out of reach! Maybe next time.

Morgan has been donating for a few weeks, but he never really described the process to me. I had all these wild visuals about being hooked up and unplugged multiple times in order for them to extract my plasma and return my blood. It was nothing like that at all.

My let arm is hooked up to a machine. As my blood is getting drawn, it flows up the machine to a tube that spins fast enough to separate the plasma from red blood cells. I squeeze my hand to help speed up the extraction, and after awhile the machine beeps to let me know that it is about to return the red blood cells (and retain my plasma), and that I should quit squeezing my hand. I go between the extraction and return process a few times, and then I am done!

I was a bit loopy after the process, which was to be expected. Morgan had scheduled his appointment to coincide with mine, and after we got home we made a great deal of food and chowed down in front of the TV. Got to bring those protein levels back up!