faint worthy.

My team mate Shuva's friend's father is in need of blood to cure his cancer. And four of us decide to do our bit. We grab a quick lunch and hit the roads on Srujan's shiny new Innova.

It is a rather modest blood bank for a hospital like Bangalore Institute of Oncology, single blood-drawing room with just the two beds. The customary forms signed and funnily all of us scribble our own names against the Patient's :).

I am the first to take turn, lay on a blood-drawing bed and squeeze the ball (for perverts, its a soft rubber ball squeezed to keep the blood flowing into the pouch). The nurse starts with my right hand and kind of started looking out for my viens rather cautiously and attentively. My thin veins on both the hands posed him a bit of a challenge and makes us go with the right. And, the long, sharp needle finds its way into one of my veins and blood bag begin to get heavier.

In the mean time, Vivek gets on to the adjacent bed and starts his rituals. His bag filling quicker than mine. I calculate a equation and tell him "Your blood flow is one and half times faster than mine" with a nervous smile. Not sure if Vivek appreciated my wits(?) under those circumstances though :)

Finally my bag is full and weighed 450 ml, the needle is out and my hand folded. I sense a bit of uneasiness in some time, and was advised to extend my rest for a while. After a good 25-30 minutes of rest, I get out to gulp in a juice and biscuits. It felt better.

It was time to take stairs after Srujan and Shuva went through it. Just when I close the car, I sensed it. I get into the car and almost tell my mates that I'm about to faint, "I'm not good" or somthing like that. Done, there comes a blank and when I regain from my pass my legs are pointing to the car ceiling and my upper body almost horizontal (Thanks to Innova's pushback :)) with anxious coulleagues around. Its a common first sight after returning from the faint, finding your feet in the air with strange faces making not much sense around you. Another nervous smile as I'm taken in a streacher back into the hospital. A first for me, for someone back from a himalayan trek (well, its a blog for another day), kind of shaking my belief that I-am-fit.

The next one hour's rest eases me a lot, pumped that much more blood into my brains to keep me sane. The faint had lasted for 10's of seconds and felt a lot longer. Not sure if I should call it enthralling, but let me call it :). All the darkness, some imaginary figures spiraling or crawling, being taken into peace. It was not sleep-like but may be death-like experience. Triggers thoughts that, death might be an experience in itself.

With some postmortem and a bit of googling, it appears that I have only myself to thank for this. Drinking adequate water and having a heavier meal before donation could well have made a difference. Also, there are many people who have overcome their fainting both during and after the donation by being well hydrated and also by preparing themselves mentally. May be, there is a psychological flavor to this.

And I would like to be more prepared the next time I do it.