Half a litre and a packet of crisps, by Sami Rautio

An original contemporary blog.

I have hated needles since I was six. So nobody was more surprised than me when I walked into the church hall on Elm Grove last Thursday and sat down to give blood. The reason was simple: my sister had needed four units of blood after a car accident in March, and I felt I owed somebody something.

First a nurse asked me a long list of questions about my health and travel, then pricked my finger to test a drop of blood in a small tube. If it had sunk too slowly, she explained, I would have needed another haemoglobin test before I could be allowed to donate. It sank. I was in.

The actual donation took eight minutes. I lay back on a padded chair, looked firmly at the ceiling, and squeezed a foam ball every few seconds to keep the blood flowing. A nurse called Bernadette talked to me about football the whole time, which I suspect was not an accident.

Afterwards I was made to sit for fifteen minutes with a cup of orange squash and a packet of crisps before I was allowed to leave. On the way out I picked up a leaflet and booked my next appointment. It is in July. I have put it in my phone with three exclamation marks.

(a) Why did the writer decide to give blood? (b) What would have happened if the drop of blood had sunk too slowly? (c) What does the writer’s reaction at the end suggest about how he now feels about giving blood?