Every Little Drop Counts

Every beat your heart makes is a chance for you to save a life. Blood is a necessity to every person’s life. Donating this precious substance is something that we can all participate in. It’s simple and a fairly fast process that doesn’t take that much time to do. There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing you can do so much for someone at such a little cost.

Recently, Imagine Prep hosted a Red Cross blood drive. Students and community members alike came together to save lives and be good citizens. Unfortunately, even with these donations, there will still not be enough for all the people that need it. According to Brookhaven National Laboratory, “4.5 million Americans would die each year without life saving blood transfusions,” and Red Cross “38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood at any given time, less than 10 percent of that eligible population actually do each year.” Because of the lack of donors there just isn’t enough to go around.

There are so many blood shortages in a year, which is why every donation counts. Imagine Prep began to host these blood drives, to get younger people involved in this vital movement. These people lent their time, and helped many people. Students that did donate blood loved to have been able to.

Ryely Bates, a senior at Imagine Prep has donated last year as well as this year. To her, the blood drive means more than having to deal with bad staff that roughly forced a needle into her arm and was uncaring about her pain. She has done it once before and would do it again. But like Bates, this wasn’t going to stop them from doing something amazing for others.

“Hopefully I get staff like the ones I donated to last year, but even if I have to deal with rude workers, I wouldn’t hesitate to donate again,”  Bates said. “The blood is going to people who need it, I’m donating it for them, not the staff. I’m not going to limit the blood supply of people who need help because of rude staff, I would definitely donate again.”

Macy Joyner is also a senior at Imagine Prep who put aside some of her time in her day to help. To her the blood drive is a place for us to give back to the community through donating our blood.

“I would recommend ALL my friends to donate blood,” Joyner said. “We are saving lives through a nearly painless experience.”

These students had some problems with the staff and wait time. Appointments don’t always mean you’ll get in quickly. Especially when there may be staff that are going a bit slower and are behind schedule.

“I made an appointment online but people who didn’t got to go ahead of me,” Joyner said. “Took me an hour and a half to be seen. next time I would suggest more staff and faculty.”

If you decide to donate to make sure you’re free for up to and hour and a half to make sure you have enough time wait. Also with the amount of blood you lose you  you could end up feeling a little sick after wards, so don’t forget to eat well the day before and the day of, as well as to drink PLENTY of water beforehand and after.

But like earlier regrettably there was some problems with the staff. One of them was fairly new at doing what they do, and another was just a little rude. Bates sadly had to experience this this kind of behavior from the staff.

“Last year was a good experience,” said Bates. “I wish I could say the same about this year, but the people working with Red Cross were terrible. When it was time for the needle to come out of my arm, a male worker was complaining about how the female doctor put the needle into my arm. He seemed a little frantic and agitated, so I asked him what was going on. He kept moving the needle around in my arm and told me to “shut up and bleed, this is medical talk.” Then he proceeded to jab the needle further into my arm, keep in mind my blood bag was full, and all he has to do was take the needle out. My body instantly froze up and I started crying, I was in so much pain. He asked me what I felt, and I told him my arm had a numbing sensation. He took the stress ball out of my hand and asked “did you feel that?” I said yes, and he replied “then it’s not numb.” Long story short, I have donated blood before, I know what it should feel like, but this time was terrible and painful, an overall bad experience in bad company.”

Although people had problems most didn’t tell anyone about the issues that had occurred if there were any other than being poked multiple times. April Cekosh, also a senior at Imagine Prep at a member of the NHS had helped run the blood drive.

“This year was extremely successful,” Cekosh said. “Our goal was 31 donations and we ended up receiving 41 donations. Nobody That I talked with had any problems with the staff, although some of them were poked a bit more than others.”

Even though Cekosh can’t donate herself she is always happy to be able to help in other ways such as helping set up and sign people in.

I had decided to donate this year for the first time. It was a little confusing on what to do when nothing was well explained and they didn’t tell you that you needed to sign up. It would have gone a little smoother if it was explained a little more thoroughly before the day. But the lady who took my interview was understanding and was nice enough to explain things to me when I got called back.

The wait was a little longer than I had expected it to be but it wasn’t horrible. I personally and thankfully didn’t have a bad experience with the staff. The girl that got everything ready and took care of setting me up was incredibly nice. They all seemed really nice and happy when I was waiting for the equipment to be ready for me.

Unfortunately the after experience was not go great. I became very dizzy, light headed and nauseous as soon as the needle was removed. I was really weak to the point where my mom had to walk me out of school and to the car once my school day was over. This continued for a few days after but got better by the end of the week.

Overall I did get really sick, and was probably because it was was my first time donating, but this didn’t make me regret doing it, and wouldn’t stop me from doing it again if I had the chance. It was amazing to know that I was able to help save a life.