I have only donated blood once in my life and it was a horrible experience. Every time I squeezed the little ball, it jutted into my vein and I swore I would never donate blood again. I have kept my word since this awful experience in 1997.
The blood shortage, however, made me reconsider. After all, giving blood is the right thing to do. I sucked it up and decided to do it.
An aside -- I've been big pretty much all my life. I was 8 lb. 10 oz. when born. I have always had big boobs (I used to be an H cup - did you even know those existed?). Even when I was relatively skinny, I was considered "big boned" -- and I weighed 195 and looked very height/weight proportional. The other day at the eye doctor, I was even told I had big pupils (? - apparently, this is a sign of "youth and beauty" per the eye doctor after I was like "oh great, one more thing to be self conscious about!"). I wear size 11 shoes. I have always been big. Virtually everything about me. I don't consider it a bad thing necessarily, but there is little denying that it is true: I'm big.
Back to the story - the nurse who was taking the donation poked around my right arm with her finger and said "Hmm, let's try the other arm". After feeling around on my left arm, she's like "Let's go with the first one". Now, I was about to go crazy and jump out of my skin realizing that this was going to make it hard and perhaps painful to get a good stick but I kept thinking -- "You are strong! You can do this!" and was not going to give up. People need blood, and I believe I am one of the types that is badly needed in the area (A-).
It ended up not being terrible (it wasn't great either, but it was nowhere near as bad as the first time), but it was so funny that after the donation was going the nurse made a point to tell me what small veins I have. For someone who doesn't have small anything, it is ironic that I have small veins.
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