Donating blood

[jobob]

LeeBob and I are donating blood tomorrow. We donate pretty regularly at the Stanford Blood Center (the Hillview site which is off-campus), and we schedule our donations for late morning, so we have a good excuse to take ourselves out to lunch afterwards.

I try to schedule for early in the week, usually Monday, so that any effects from donating are pretty much over by the weekend. That said, I usually don't have problems with donating ... heh, but now that I said this, watch tomorrow be an exception.

Once in a while I'll be rejected for low iron. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm anemic, since the minimum iron level needed to donate whole blood is a bit above the "normal" threshhold. Nowadays I take iron supplements a week or two ahead of time.

I'm not biking a heck of a lot nowadays, or doing anything particularly athletic*, so I can't comment on how it affects a training program. I'll probably just take it easy for a day or so.

*Although I'm getting a lot of exercise today running back & forth to the bathroom, since like the rest of you I've found being well hydrated helps a lot.

I feel like it's my duty to donate because I'm healthy and able, and hopefully, if I should ever need blood, there will be enough healthy and able people who were just as willing to give to save my life.

Yep!