Wednesday was not too good of a day.

I got a paper cut from toilet paper.

I got hit in the back of the head with a basketball.

And I tried to give blood.

There was a blood drive going on in the student center so when I went in to check my mail I decided to try to give blood. I'd tried in high school and was told my hemocrit was too low. So I filled out the forms, answered all those "have you had sex with a monkey, a man who's had sex with another man, or who's been to Nambia, Serbia, or Liberia since 1980?" questions (I couldn't remember the countries, those are made up), and my hemocrit passed this time! 38 is the minimum and that's what I had.

But then I apparently have small veins. The first nurse who felt up my veins called over another nurse and asked if she could take over me, and murmured "she has small veins" to which the new nurse said "Oh, great" at which point I should have stood up and left, if I'd known.

Because she ended up digging around in my arm with the needle for around 1 to 2 full minutes (not fun), let me drain for maybe 3 more minutes, said it wasn't working, and to just go home. After a minimum of cookies and juice.

It hurt but that was okay. And then it started bruising. Majorly.

Even the bruising wasn't that bad. But then Wednesday night my hand started tingling and that was worrisome. Yesterday morning I was finally able to get through to the Red Cross on the phone and ask what the heck that was about, and the nurse said the pressure from the bruise was probably pressing a nerve. Eeeiuhhh. She recommended ice, then warm compresses. And astonishly, it totally worked, and the tingling's been gone since yesterday afternoon.

Though now the bruise is ginormous. Four inches in the longest direction, three perpendicular to that. It's really a quite astonish array of purples and blues. The weirdest is where the blood pooled around the Band-Aid.

So I think the next time I try to give blood I won't go through the Red Cross, but maybe call a hospital or something - some other way. When I can say, "Please give me the most experienced person!"

Though, I don't really have anything against the Red Cross. The nurse on the phone was very nice and very apologetic and very much "please don't let this keep you from ever donating again and next time just tell the supervisor you had a really hard time your first time and you want the best person to take your blood" and they called back today to make sure I was okay.

Actually, it's weird now. The giant bruise doesn't very much when I poke it, but my arm halfway up to my wrist and right at the base of the back of my hand, where bruises don't show, hurt. Odd.